After the Devil got all the Prada, he went to Italy and found more fashion kicks with the outstanding 70s set costume making drama Diamonds (Diamanti), directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. From a script written by Ozpetek, Elisa Casseri, and Carlotta Corradi, it opens in modern times, with the director (Ferzan Ozpetek) gathering together the cast of the movie for a table read in the sunshine with full wine glasses. Many of the actresses are skeptical that they are to play the usual adjacent roles older women play, like mothers or aunts. The director proclaims that all of the actresses are diamonds and hands the script around the big outdoor banquet table.
The movie then cuts to the world inside the script, to the 70s in an Italian costume-making shop run by two sisters, Alberta (Luisa Ranieri), and Gabriella (Jasmine Trinca). The Oscar-winning costume designer, Bianca Vega (Vanessa Scalera), needs the 18th-century period costumes made for a soon-to-start production she was hired for. Vega commissions the shop with the construction of the main character’s gowns, while the minor characters’ outfits will be farmed out to other shops. Alberta insists their shop can handle making all the costumes needed for the movie, much to the horror of shell-shocked Gabriella. The deadline is impossibly close, so everyone gets sewing immediately. Everything needs to go perfectly smooth with no major upheavals to pull this off. It doesn’t.
There are more great actresses in this movie than there are stars in the sky. Besides the above-mentioned leads, the movie also features Sara Bosi, Loredana Cannata, Geppi Cucciari, Anna Ferzetti, Auedea Giovinazzo, Nicole Grimaudo, Milena Mancini, Elena Sofia Ricci, Junetta Savio, Vanessa Scalera, Carla Signoris, Mara Venier, and Geselda Yolodi. With an arsenal of top female talent lined up like this, it is impossible not to draw parallels between Ozpetek and Altman. Like Altman, Ozpetek is able to capture amazing performances from a fantastic ensemble cast. Each actress gets to fully engage in her own personal spotlight down a multitude of whirling individual subplots. While everyone’s tale has its own level of juiciness, the big hook is with the darkest side-story featuring Mancini. To the audience, this shines in the distance like a strip of neon at the end of a dark desert highway.
“… fashion kicks with the outstanding 70s set costume making drama …”
Ozpetek juggles the many story lines with ease, all the while crafting the form of the environment in which they take place. The big difference is Ozpetek trims all the fat that Altman would leave on in order to be sloppy on purpose. There is no talking over each other on purpose, no awkward exchanges in order to seem realistic. Instead, Ozpetek sets up a workplace setting that runs with the clean precision of a sewing machine. The energy of non-stop industry permeates each scene, as everyone rushes from one room to the next, working their a***s off. It makes the audience feel inside the faraway shop’s world, insiders of a non-stop, high-stakes garment game.
And the world looks wonderful, thanks to the unseen superstars of the picture, production designer Deniz Gokturk Kobanbay, Art Director Silvia Colafranceschi, set decorator Valeria Zamagni, and costume designer Stefano Ciammitti. That team’s recreation of the 70s is one of the most effective immersions into that decade, speaking as someone who was there, albeit in limited capacity (mostly in playgrounds, wearing my dope man Zips.) The raw beauty of the decade comes forth without the kitsch, as well as all the remaining connections to the old world that were still standing. It felt so natural that I would only be jolted into realizing it was the past when those beautiful, black & white televisions that were everywhere then would appear onscreen again.
I was deeply skeptical about the framing meta-sections of Diamonds (Diamanti), especially when it would inject itself into breaks in the storyline. I just didn’t see the need to break the verisimilitude of such a rich main narrative with constant pullbacks of the curtain. However, when the true purpose of the self-referential parts comes to light, it is pure cinema magic. If sentimental and drunk are basically the same sensation, then Ozpetek will have you falling off your chair with emotional intoxication. Seeing what you assume is the weakest element of a movie suddenly become its strongest is a trick rarely seen, and will be truly relished. Find Diamonds (Diamanti) and sew your face to this retro extravaganza, as it will never go out of fashion.
"…sew your face to this retro extravaganza, as it will never go out of fashion."
