Una storia moderna - L'ape regina

To be a tool means to become just a part of the insect reproduction plan, while to be a husband in a Catholic family means to become only a means to fulfill a broader plan, but no longer an insect-related plan, but a divine one. Ferreri's analogy (a typical expressive tool for him) is clearly recognizable in the film, but it is funnier to follow this analogy to its consequences. These consequences involve replacing love for the husband with love for God, ultimately extending to all of His dead, fossilized, wooden substitutes that churches and believers gradually invented as substitutes for the living and "fervent" God (of course, because He was never alive). That is why Tognazzi is only an ever more sidelined intermediary (through his child) for the survival of Marina Vlady's Catholic/Vatican family, which is why we see her gradually demonstrating love throughout the film: to the introduced mother, the mummy of a saint (who exchanged her femininity for a man who would fulfill the religious ideal, see legend), the statue of a monk skeleton, and so on. Living love for a person is thus replaced by loyalty to dead symbols and principles from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). The scene in the tomb is symptomatic - Tognazzi not only senses that his life is relentlessly heading towards it, but we the audience understand that his whole life is subordinate to this tomb because he has become only a tool to fill another generation of spaces for coffins and to ensure that the next generation of women from "his" family can worship not only in the church but also in the tomb. (22.12.2014)

One of the period's highly provocative films made in Buñuel's style, which, given the significant social changes and globalization, doesn't say much to today's audiences anymore. Ferreri mocked the then-dominant influence of the Catholic Church on social morality and sexual life. His protagonist's behavior is just a consistent fulfillment of Catholic ideas about sex and family life. In the early 60s, the film was the subject of many protests from the church, and it was not allowed to be screened for a certain period of time. Today, it is just a part of film history and is shown in clubs. Overall impression: 55%. (01.04.2009)