Analysis of the Novel Looking for Alibrandi - Essay Example

Looking for Alibrandi . Looking for Alibrandi was the 2000 film adaptation of Melina Marchetti's highly popular coming of age novel of the same name. The film starred veteran actor Greta Scacchi as Christina, mother of the lead character Josephine Alibrandi, a 17 year old Italo-Australian girl in her final year of high school on scholarship at a well respected school in Sydney. Josephine or Josie as she was known in the story was played by the luminous new actress Pia Miranda..The remainder of the cast were also remarkable in this charming story. There is much in this story to examine and in this paper the focus will be on smaller area in order to illuminate the broad topic This paper will examine in a focused way one particular sequence of scenes from the film that were pivotal in many ways to the story and the themes that were explored. The sequence that will be looked at begins with Christina and Josie, the the mother and the protagonist of the story standing in front of the mirror waiting for Jacob to arrive for a date to a film. Later during the date a conflict ensues between the young couple and Josie's leaves Jacob in rush of anger and runs into her father, then the scene ends with Josie putting away a note she received from a dear friend John who had committed suicide. These three sequences of action highlight so many of the important themes in the novel that it is important to examine them further. The scene begins with Josie and Christina standing looking in the mirror. There is a great deal that has gone on up to this point in the story that deserves delineation to understand why the image of the mother and daughter standing in front of the mirror is a cinematographic metaphor for the new understanding that exists between them. Looking for Alibrandi is the story of a 3rd generation Italian girl in Australia in her final year of high school at a highly respected private school. She is very bright and ambitious, dreaming of eventually becoming a lawyer. In Australia there is still a certain level of tension that exists about her foreign background. She is shown to have no concerns about the possibility of racial tension but all the same it exists, as she occasionally hears the racist epithet “wog” associated with her heritage. Josie is unique though; she has been raised by a single mother and does not know her father. After her conflict with Jacob she does reach an understanding with her father, an idealistic lawyer and this particular area of potential conflict is not elaborated in the conventional way . The area of tension that does arise is when she is forced to the deal with the constant interference of her grandmother, Nona Katie. Nona places an old world burden on her, restricting her from the freedoms of her class mates. While Josie undoubtedly feels the pressure of this sense of expectation and it is certainly highlighted by her mother as well, she wears it lightly. The film shows Josie well capable of having fun. In the early course of the film she showers a great deal of affection on a friend, an Australian boy John, the son of a local politician. He is to be tragic figure in the story. He is sweet and Josie comes to love him but he is emotionally torn by the heavy expectations of his prominent father. In a surprising and dark turn in the story John commits suicide and his death casts a pall over the rest of the story and indeed over the rest of expectant year of new possibility in Josie's life, her final year in High school. Josie's attraction to John and later to Jacob, both Australian boys is part of the stories message of rapprochement between the the two groups . On occasion this divide is explored as in the hateful behaviour of a bigoted school classmate to whom Josie reacts with typical aplomb by breaking her nose. This particular conflict is not the heart of the story but rather serves as a device to bring back Josie's father into the story as legal counsel in the potential law suit. The deeper pressure of the story instead exists in the clash of immigrant values in a new land. The stance that she takes on the preservation of culture is clearly tinged with hypocrisy but it brings together so many revelatory parallels between the lives of the three generations of women in the story. In the scene where Josie and Christina stand looking at each other in the mirror there is clear use of the mirror to illustrate the repeating patterns in both women's lives . Both Josie and Christina are born out of wedlock. This realisation occurs only a little time before their mutual glance into the mirror as the grandmother Katie reveals that she bore Christina out of wedlock to an Australian man many years before. So it seems, Nonie, the image of propriety, the force of tradition has also strayed from traditional convention. At this point both mother and daughter stare into the the mirror with a new understanding of each other. They are, as harsh as the term sounds, bastard children but in the understanding there is the implicit sense that both realise that the legacy of legitimacy confers no special advantage in their case, as both have turned out so well. There is the parallel also in the fact that Josie waits now for her Australian boyfriend to see her. There is a sense between them that there is no shame in the relationship or the mingling of the two groups, divided in the past by an animosity born of ignorance and simple supposition. When Jacob arrives the action moves to the date. At this point Josie has not told Jacob about the new revelation about her past. It is with a certain degree of irony then, that the two of them are together with a sense of bridging a chasm of culture but in truth they are more alike than different if any stock is to be given the sense of racial division that separated them before . It is a unique situation where knowledge can change a situation but it cannot remove the burden of lived history. Josie while more ethnically part of Australian culture as her mother is realized to be half Australian and she too is half Australian and yet she is raised with the sense of apartness that marks the initial arrival of new immigrants to Australian . Indeed , it is hard not to get too self conscious referring to Jacob and Michael as Australian when they too are of European background whose ancestors came to Australia's shores not far into the past. Nevertheless since the tension exists in the minds of the characters it must be assumed to be true in the way of Descartes' logic. with Jacob along side Josie in spite of the cultural prohibitions there is a sense of standing up to the inherent hypocrisy of artificial divisions between different cultural groups. Eventually their date does end in a climactic argument where the division in respective cultural expectations are openly voiced by Josie and this highlights the sense that culture is something that cannot be shed on the premise of a new idea about ones own identity. Rather ones culture is the product of a lifetime of experience and in the case of Josie she is defined by her difference in large measure. The pain of this encounter is eased by the fortuitous accidental encounter with her estranged father and a real reconciliation. So in this scene there is an arc of union, and then separation followed by reunion. The final scene where Josie reads the letter from John and places it in a box reaffirms the reality of the year that Josie has lived. Often in romantic stories there is a disconnect with other troubling events in the story for the sake of a happy ending. This does not happen in life and here in this story there is an admirable degree of fidelity to the events of Josie's life. There is a good deal of symbolic weight in the act of examining the letter. Part of the coming of age aspect to the film is its intimation of mortality. In a surprisingly mature way Josie is precociously shown to come to a more subtle understanding of life at a young age. In the course of the story and shortly before examining the letter she has come to many revelations about herself and many aspects of her personal and family life that have to some degree been shrouded in mystery. She meets her father and the reconciliation is not a disillusionment as is often the case in films where there is a meeting with a parent who has long abandoned a child. She suffers the loss of her friend John, to suicide and it marks her whole year in cast of sadness. She nevertheless continues to live in the infectiously vital way she is shown in the film. She lives and dreams her dreams of success. Then she meets Jacob and she finds herself liking him for his irreverence and raw sensitivity in the recollection of the pain of his mother's death and then she withdraws from him and his cultural difference. She lives vitally but at the end when she is at a place of clarity about herself and the revelations of her grandmother she is still aware of the inevitability of death. Thus her reading of John' s letter is a great act of maturity since it shows that she imbues her activities with the meaning that relates to their finality in the shadow of mortality. Looking for Alibrandi is profoundly moving film. The viewer is charmed by the intelligence and heart of Josie. The scenes described in this paper are pivotal in the story. The subtle way in which Josie and her mother stand in front o f the mirror at that particular part of the film speaks of the shared legacy they share of illegitimate procreation but the mirror is not marked in any negative way by that fact. Both Josie and Christina have turned out to be most remarkable women. In other words while the mirror is metaphor for how each of them has experience that is mirrored in the life of the other, the image is clear and beautiful in every sense regardless of any societal edict against it . The intervening scene with Josie and Jacob on a date is a challenge to convention, then a disappointment that is softened only by the chance meeting and reconciliation with her father. The scene with the letter from John is an indication of the maturity of the film in many respects. These scenes are artful and illuminating and a testament to the fine treatment of a well loved novel to a screen adaptation. References David Stratton, "Faithful takes on rites of passage", The Weekend Australian Arts Review, 6-7 May 2000:20 "New Releases", The West Australian Today Liftout, 11 May 2000-05-17 Michaela Boland, "Everyone's looking for Alibrandi", Cinema Papers, May 2000, pg 22-2 Read More