A storm leads Adele (Tecla Insolia) to rescue some items from her basement as it’s threatened with being flooded in “Idda,” with the rain outside giving her plenty of time to look at old pictures she hasn’t bothered to dig up in years. She can be excited by the prospect of looking back at most things she’s forgotten from her childhood, but one disposable camera sits untouched and frankly feared as she flips through scrapbooks and although appropriately enough, Irene Dionosio’s drama takes some time to develop, but holds enormous power once it does.
Occasionally confusing with multiple timelines and mixed metaphors, the ambition of “Idda” is evident from the start as it presents Adele besides scenes of Mt. Etna, both seemingly on the verge of an eruption but only letting out steam for now. She is a travel photographer whose reach is likely limited by having a small appetite for adventure unlike her best friend Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano), who can be counted on to nudge her past any fears of the unknown yet unreliable otherwise, though part of what Adele admires about her is not being weighed down by anything. The two have decided to scale Mt. Etna together, drawn by the legendary sensation of being around its “breath,” but the danger of how Sofia is apt to play with fire starts to show almost as soon as she arrives by train to meet Adele, who is on assignment to cover the Feast of Saint Agatha in Catania, and begins flirting with a guy Adele has just met that she’s taken an interest in. The dynamic is familiar when Adele is attracted to Sofia for the same reasons she can be repulsed by her, but the reflection of the relationship is original as it gradually becomes clear that Dionosio is tracking multiple visits by Adele to Mt. Etna, moving between the past and present with the photographer not only taking pictures with her camera, but the film expressing the impressions it’s made in her mind as if certain scenes were snapshots of places that have since disappeared.
Obviously something went horribly awry between Adele and Sofia, but Dionosio draws as much tension from the tempestuous relationship that led them up to the mountain in the first place, woefully unprepared for the fall they could take as the reticent photographer is pushed to ends she wouldn’t ordinarily want to go, for better or worse. The two’s climb is complicated by poor weather conditions, leading Adele to call in Salvatore (Giuseppe De Domenico), a friend she met on a previous trip who Sofia inevitably attempts to seduce despite the fact that both are said to be in relationships, and it becomes hard to tell whether it’s the roaring fireplace, Sofia’s come-ons or Adele’s simmering anger that is keeping things warm when they have to stay in for the night.
Frequent cutbacks to Mt. Etna can feel as if Dionosio doesn’t always have the confidence to relate the emotions at hand, an approach rendered unnecessary by the passionate, expressive performances from Insolia and Vergano and an exquisite score from Matteo Marini, Gabriele Concas, Peter Miyakawa that synthesizes the rumblings of both the mountain and the human heart into an transfixing pulse. However, the director clearly doesn’t lack nerve when pulling off a number of tricky emotional scenes, brilliantly staging a separation between Sofia and Adele that starts out being measured in feet as they walk away from one another and becomes an insurmountable emotional gulf by juxtaposing where they end up on separate paths and in the most stunning moment, follows Adele seemingly back in the past, only for the tears that accrue in her eyes to acknowledge it’s the present. By the end, it isn’t just Adele who feels much stronger than she started out as “Idda” builds to an unforgettable conclusion about a friendship that was as valuable as it was dangerous and what memories are discarded to protect the ones that are cherished.
“Idda” will screen again at the Toronto Film Festival on September 12th at the TIFF Lightbox at 11:45 am and September 18th at the Scotiabank at 6:25 pm.