When I think of Italy, I always think of Under A Tuscan Sun--not the book, the movie. I remember watching it on HBO when my family first got cable. It was a lazy summer Sunday; my parents were out of the house, and I didn't feel up to doing anything really besides schlepping around watching trashy reality T.V. shows and sickly-sweet romantic comedies.
In that particular depiction of Italy, the nation, and Tuscany especially, is almost a supporting member of the cast, reintroducing the main character to romance, elegance, and independence, concepts she had lost touch with in her middle-age. The book the movie is based on is a memoir of its author, Frances Mayes, and I remember feeling that the movie too had a remarkably memoir-like quality with its reflective inner monologues and idealized little moments.
In a way, Tea with Mussolini is similar to Under a Tuscan Sun in that both are based on memoirs and both draw heavily upon the landscape and atmosphere of northern Italy. Continuing along these lines, one could also postulate that both Diane Lane's character in Under a Tuscan Sun and Zefferelli's Luca in Tea with Mussolini are strangers within Italy--the former because she is a foreign tourist who decides on a whim to make Tuscany her new home and the latter because he is born on the outskirts of Italian society and raised amidst an enclave of aged British dowagers in Florence. This sense of otherness forms a dynamic tension that underlies that central themes of redemption and self-discovery that propel both films.
Since both these works are also loosely based on the actual life events of two individuals, it is also interesting to think about how they were realized both in the context of the time frame in which they were conceived and in the subjective story-telling of Zefferelli and Mayes respectively. In other words, how do these two films actually re-imagine rather than simply regurgitate the lives they are based on. In the case of Tea with Mussolini, the life of Luca (aka Zefferelli) is given a certain theatricality and grandeur that is not wholly couched in truth. Yes, Zefferelli certainly did have a childhood of unique circumstances, but several of the events and characters within the movie can be seen as loose interpretations of real-life individuals or even fabrications on the part of Zefferelli intended to help the movie convey larger themes about life, war and disillusionment. Characters such as Georgie and Ester and Lady Hester are added to add a dramatic flavor to the film that would have been lacking if the movie had focused more closely on Zefferelli's actual life. This manufacturing of life history obviously reflects Zefferelli's own ideas on the memoir-process. As a director, Zeffereli's talents lie in showcasing the flashy and indelible, and this is a philosophy that he applies liberally to his own life.... some might say with even more ardor than in more impersonal works.
Besides drawing heavily upon Zeffereli's successes as a showman and raconteur, the film also reflects the time in which it was conceived. Filmed in the late 90's between the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the September 11th terrorist attack, Tea with Mussolini resonates with the general optimism and new-found openness of the time. The movie's liberalized content and bevy of brash, worldly characters also correlates with the sentiments of the time period. Zefferelli may be telling his life story in Tea with Mussolini, but he can't help but color the story with his own directorial background and the overarching feelings of the time.
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