Incompreso / Misunderstood (introduced by Cristina Comencini and Emilio Morreale, video message by Isabelle Huppert)

Luigi Comencini: Incompreso / Misunderstood (IT 1966). Stefano Colagrande as the elder brother Andrew Duncombe, the misunderstood one.

Incompreso – vita col figlio / L'Incompris (1978 re-release title) / Mon fils cet incompris (1966 first run title) / Der Unverstandene.

    IT 1966. Prod.: Angelo Rizzoli per Rizzoli Film, Istituto Luce.  

    Director: Luigi Comencini. Sog.: from the novel of the same name (1869) by Florence Montgomery. Scen.: Leo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, with the collaboration of Lucia Drudy Dembi, Giuseppe Mangione, direction Bruno Nicolai. F.: Armando Nannuzzi – Technicolor – mono – 1,85:1 – 3730 m. M.: Nino Baragli. Scgf.: Ranieri Cochetti. Mus.: Fiorenzo Carpi. Int.: Anthony Quayle, dubbed by Romolo Valli (console Duncombe, Sir Edward Duncombe), Stefano Colagrande (Andrea / Andrew Duncombe), Simone Giannozzi (Milo / Matthew Duncombe), John Sharp (uncle Will), Adriana Facchetti (Luisa), Silla Bettini (judo teacher), Rino Benini (Casimiro), Georgia Moll (miss Judy).

    Loc: Florence (Arretri, via della Torre del Gallo, lungarno Torregiani, Ponte Vecchio, via Sogliano).

    W. A. Mozart: 23. Klavierkonzert in A-Dur, KV 488, 2. Satz: Adagio (Wien 1786).

    Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto (1851).

    100 min

    Not released in Finland. Florence Montgomery's novel was translated into Finnish as Väärin ymmärretty (WSOY 1923).

    DCP with English subtitles (n.c.) from Mediaset.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Life First! The Cinema of Luigi Comencini.

    Introduced by Cristina Comencini, hosted by Emilio Morreale.

    Video-message from Isabelle Huppert

    Viewed with subtitles in English at Cinema Modernissimo, 25 June 2025.

Paolo Mereghetti (2007) (Bologna 2025): "Comencini transforms a job-for-hire (an adaptation of a classic weepie of late nineteenth century English literature) into a subtle and highly personal film that, together with the first part of Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence, marks the beginning of a major new phase in his career, of films about children."

"The director creates a “sort of world apart, disconnected from everyday matters and protected from external reality, in which the only visible influences are psychological in nature … It is a universe in which the children’s solitude is palpable, almost measurable (the long corridors and rooms are often deserted, the tree-lined paths of the garden hide the children from their nanny’s eyes), and which ends up making the psychological problems of the two young protagonists even more evident and piercing."

"At its core, Comencini entrusts the narrative structure and generation of emotions to the confrontation/conflict between two periods of youth (pre-moral childish innocence and the more socialised and responsible early adolescence) and both the children’s and the viewer’s discovery of the insensibility (or different sensibility) of the adult world … "

"The film develops by juxtaposing apparently disparate scenes, ignoring the links that other directors would have carefully made explicit but which Comencini intentionally eliminates … It is almost as if the director were trying to emulate a child’s gaze: more emotional than didactic, more reactive than properly explanatory (narrative).” (Paolo Mereghetti, in Luigi Comencini. Il cinema e i film, edited by Adriano Aprà, Marsilio, Venice 2007). (Bologna 2025)

AA: Luigi Comencini's Misunderstood was itself misunderstood. The movie had a disastrous reception at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967, though defended by Jacques Siclier and Bertrand Tavernier. But it received a triumphant re-release in France in 1978, where it was also warned to be a "machine à faire pleurer" ("a crying machine").

In his introduction, Emilio Morreale saw Misunderstood as a turning-point on Luigi Comencini's career. From now on he fully became a director of childhood. Cristina Comencini in her opening remarks testified that the film was totally personal for her father. The theme of the little brother taken care of and the big brother being left all alone. The relationship of children to death. The reaction to loss, playing in the ruins. Luigi Comencini was a director of fatherhood. He lost his own father at age 13 and was in search of a father figure all his life. He had four daughters [and sisters?] but always male protagonists [not always...]. He saw girls as women, claimed Cristina Comenicini. The screening ended with Isabelle Huppert's video love letter to Incompreso.

The movie is based on Florence Montgomery's beloved novel, which was celebrated in 1869 for its new insight in child psychology.

Making a movie, Luigi Comencini takes full advantage of the cinematic possibilities of the action movie: wild boy energy, running, overspeeding, pranks, transgressions, make-believe and derring-do. The two brothers, the 8-year old Andrew and the 4-year old Miles, quickly wear out a series of the most hardened governesses.

Mother has died, and dad tells about it to Andrew confidentially, but Miles must be protected from the truth. Miles is the capricious charmer while Andrew suffers in silence. The brothers are inseparable, and whenever there is trouble, Andrew takes the blame.

The father, always away on business, fails to understand. One of Andrew's games is the "Audacimetre". He loves to test his limits by hanging on a dead tree branch over the river. One crack... two cracks... three cracks... finally four cracks. But Miles wants to join the game, too, defying Andrew's warning, and grabs the heavy branch. It breaks, and Andrew falls into the river. His back is lethally fractured against a stone on the riverbed.

On Andrew's deathbed dad realizes how blind he has been. "Now I see that you are truly the son that every father would like to have".

The younger brother was the tougher one in his primitive insensitivity. The older brother was the more vulnerable one. Miles's childish naughtiness was a protective wall against the unfathomable loss of mother. Andrew's self-destructive behaviour was a cry for help.

Luigi Comencini is a master of the mise-en-scène in his staging of the story in the large residence of the consul, the surrounding nature and the city of Florence. Most of all, he is a master of subtle child psychology in his direction of the young actors.

I would not call this film a melodrama. I find that Comencini prizes childhood as a golden age and the most privileged key to the mystery of life and who we are.

An Italian friend of mine confided to me that this film is special for her mother. When she watched it on television, the table turned into a lake of tears.

The quality of the presentation was clean and sober, but at times it felt like watching a blu-ray.

Florence Montgomery's novel Misunderstood (1869) was translated into Finnish as Väärin ymmärretty (WSOY 1923). Photo: Antikvaari.fi