Lorenzo, who's 16 and born to a wealthy family in Parma, tries to make things right toward a showgirl, Aida, whom his older brother has mistreated. In extending kindness and standing up for her, he comes of age. But, is there anything he can do that will alter Aida's situation or her prospects?
La Fille à la valise, La chica con la maleta, La muchacha de la valija, 提箱丽人, 天涯一美人, A Rapariga da Mala, Девушка с чемоданом, Момичето с куфара, Das Mädchen mit dem leichten Gepäck, 手提箱女郎, 가방을 든 여인, Dziewczyna z walizką, A Moça com a Valise, Flickan med kappsäcken
France
Cannes Film Festival
PortugalM/12
ItalyT
USA
JapanG
FranceU
Portugal
FranceU
France
France
France
Italy
Japan
Portugal
USA
My fourth Valerio Zurlini. On the surface, this might seem like a "coming of age" teenage boy meets a slightly older girl story. But it's much more than that. It turns into a sad and bitter tale about how easily a beautiful girl born into poverty is exploited by men. Even the poignant interval with a lovestruck boy cannot alter her circumstances or life trajectory.
The boy, 16 year old Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin) is from a wealthy aristocratic family in Parma. His crush is on Aida (Claudia Cardinale), a young woman his older brother basically seduced with big promises and then abandoned in a garage with her suitcase. Lorenzo's attraction to her and his genuine desire to help her opens…
This is the the third film I watched from Zurlini and he is truly underappreciated among Italian filmmakers. His vision of masculinity, his choice of actors and the way he depicts his melacholic world is really unique. This film from its start fascinates me and the way he approaches his characters is intriguing.
Uma trilha sonora com o melhor da música pop italiana. Cardinale, no auge da beleza, dá vida a uma Aida cheia de camadas, e marcada pelas desventuras e incertezas da vida. Um filme que fala sobre a juventude e o amor, mas também sobre as mulheres, o papel que lhe era designado, em uma época que a liberdade sexual e uma juventude começava a se opor ao conservadorismo. Romântico, solar e ao mesmo tempo agridoce e amargo. Uma pérola do cinema italiano.
Zurlini's coming of age story is nothing short of what it means to grow up in complicated times of our romantic hopes. The turmoil of discovering someone we find beautiful and whom with we like to spend our time with may just be one of the most stressing moments of our life when we're that young. The male protagonist of "Girl with a Suitcase" is a naive young boy, a teenager, that is enamored with a woman, with the face of Claudia Cardinale, a woman that came into his life at the expense of his older brother's bad deeds. So he tries to do right for her, and ends up falling in love, that kind of young love, not true…
zurlini organizes a series of melodramatic mannerisms in a film of wonderful cinematography to conceive a beautifully staged coming of age film (he seems more interested in developing his main character’s reactions and personal growth rather than go deeply into cardinale’s character or accuse whatever injustices might have been done towards her, those more relevant as a plot progression tool allowing the film to arrive into the story of naive love it intends to work later on).
Ça faisait au moins une éternité qu'un film ne m'avait pas tant bouleversé par des regards, des comédiens qui jouent un amour factice plus vrai que nature, de simples gestes, de simples sourires. Tout la première heure est une merveille de délicatesse, bouleversante innocence, candeur qui fait vibrer le coeur, la balade musicale, descente d'escalier inoubliable, soirée dansante fatale et Claudia Cardinale....
Puis le film a une petit demi-heure en deçà où s'enchaînent les personnages secondaires, il devient pénible négativement puis pénible positivement avec ce dernier quart d'heure magnifique, mélancolie qui te sèche sur place, amour impossible et encore la balade musicale, et toujours Claudia...
(9.8/10)
j’adore comme jacques perrin a toujours l’air d’être le seul mec tendre parmi une ribambelle de machos dégoûtants, mon acteur green flag par excellence j’ai envie de dire hihi
et claudia cardinale absolument magnétique, très envie de voir plus de film où elle joue
Nuanced to the point of mannerism, and I wasn't able to engage closely with it until the end of Act Two; the plot seems to revolve around an ambivalent attitude toward "the girl," who tries to be a decent human being while the men around her invariably put her in a box labeled "whore." Her internal conflicts - struggling against the confines of that category while she also acquiesces to it and behaves accordingly - seem to be the most interesting thing about the movie. There's a whiff of misogyny there, with the script seeming to attach too much importance to evaluating how much of a "whore" she actually is/isn't, but that may only be in the service of critiquing the men who insist on putting her in that category... and as a work of art, one does it a disservice by insisting on reductive political binaries.
The cinematography is a thing of absolute glory.
Been a hot minute since I’ve watched an old Italian drama, and this fantastic coming of age tale about burgeoning masculinity and empathy is one hell of a return. It’s really just a bittersweet little story about two very naive people from different side of the tracks who feel the need to hide parts of themselves to showcase their empathetic feelings feelings towards one another, and it treats the subject matter delicately and realistically. This by far the best performance I’ve seen from Claudia Cardinale thus far - she absolutely radiant, sweet, charming yet headstrong. Also it’s hard to believe this is Jacques Perrin’s first lead role because he’s equally as good as well.
This movie has gotten one hell…
I really love how Valerio Zurlini uses music both in Girl with a Suitcase and Violent Summer, which I watched a few days ago. Not only do I like his taste, but Girl with a Suitcase has a beautiful score and an excellent theme music motif running throughout. I also loved Cardinale and Perrin in the lead roles, and the set design for the Fainardi mansion was stunning.
I think one reason I didn't like this more (but still appreciated it!) was that I just didn't have a particular interest in the story. I've been aware of this movie for a good 10 months but I have never wanted to watch it. The only reason I did is because when…
Ahh that is veryyyy difficult to rate. What is actually a clear 3.75 movie for me makes me flirt with a 4 because of an enormously grandiose Claudia Cardinale. Definitely her best role I’ve seen so far. Although her voice was dubbed, as so often, because they thought it was too high at the time, the new one fits perfectly here and you could not believe that its dubbed.
There's also a wonderful youthful performance by Jacques Perrin who really pulls off the OG flair of a Licorize Pizza. Everything is combined with a wonderfully broad score and, as always, great Zurlini direction. I missed the real highlights like a prima notte had but still had 2 hours of pure enjoyment for me.
Have to stay at 3,75 at the moment but I will see.
