The movie had its world premiere at the 55th Venice International Film Festival .
(Italian title: La seconda moglie ) is a 1998 Italian comedy-drama directed by Ugo Chiti and starring Maria Grazia Cucinotta . Set in the late 1950s or early 1960s Tuscan countryside, the film follows a single mother who enters a new marriage, only to find herself drawn into a forbidden romance with her stepson. 0;92;0;a1; 0;baf;0;ca; Film Overview 0;381;0;400; index of the second wife 1998
The film is often compared to the works of Tinto Brass , though critics note it is a more "chaste" and "bittersweet" take on the themes of rustic desire and small-town Italian life. The Second Wife - Variety The movie had its world premiere at the
Questions metastasized into obsession. Mara made a list in the margins of her planner: visit the county clerk’s office; request probate files; check the town library's microfilm for small notices; speak with the municipal gardener who’d worked for Roland Hart. Each box filled with thin returns: “no record,” “privacy,” “sealed.” Yet every sealed door in the town seemed to hold, like a heart in a ribcage, a catalogue of second marriages whose legal and financial afterlives had been tended by a handful of professionals: one probate attorney who kept a tight ledger; one cemetery plot supplier whose invoices recurred; one notary public whose stamp was on a disproportionate number of change-of-beneficiary forms. Each box filled with thin returns: “no record,”
Criticized by some for having the "glossiness of a commercial," the film is noted for its rich, golden-toned cinematography by Raffaele Mertes and its "carnivalesque" musical score. Critical Reception
Summer 1957 (or early 1960s) in a rural Tuscan coastal community Core Plot