It’s not an easy feat to bring a sense of personality to a handbag. Where did you start?
The challenge was finding a voice to fit the words I had written. I wanted to find an elderly woman, who you could tell had [really] lived a life through her voice, because the bag is towards the end of its life. This ended up being a woman who lived in Italy, outside of the village where we shot the film. She was recommended by the local hairdresser, Lorenzo, and turned out to be wonderful to work with. She had a willingness to repeat line after line and never complained or got tired.
Why did you decide to set the film in Italy?
I have a love of Italy that goes back to when I was 13, when I first went there on a holiday with friends of my parents. It was the first time that I felt that I had freedom. I drank wine for the first time and I fell in love with the lifestyle. At 17, I went back with a friend and we met an American photographer who taught us to develop film and, more importantly, how to see. Instead of pointing a camera at the Duomo, she’d draw our attention to graffiti on a wall. One of my first photos was of faded handprints on a wall near Piazza San Marco.
Your feature films have grown increasingly autobiographical over time, from The Souvenir (2019), The Souvenir Part II (2021), to The Eternal Daughter (2022). Did making a film about a handbag allow for a different kind of self-exploration?
I’ve always been drawn to autobiography in my feature films, and there was something about the autobiography of an object – a handbag – that passively witnesses many things. The story became a vessel for my own thoughts and feelings. At the same time, I was fascinated by Mrs. Prada and her work – I wanted her spirit to be in the film in some way so I carried out indirect research from afar.
Your early film Caprice (1986) had a surreal, fantastical quality. Do you feel like you’ve flexed some of those creative muscles in your latest film?
Yes, I definitely did. I actively discussed it with Stéphane Collonge, my production designer. I remember talking to him about how this film, with its episodic structure, felt like a return to something I hadn’t explored since Caprice. It was my graduation film, and it got a strange reaction that made filmmaking feel less fun for a while. I’m in the fashion world again, or at least skirting it.
What items can we expect to find inside the Wander handbag in Autobiografia di una Borsetta?
Depending on the owner it could be a love letter, a souvenir from Paris, or a gun.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
