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THE UNKNOWN WOMAN Send This Review to a Friend
Irena, a Ukrainian woman with a past, is “The Unknown Woman” in writer- director Giuseppe Tornatore’s grim potboiler involving abuse of prostitutes and ruthless operators of sex rings. But Irena has a secret mission that is the basis of the strange story that Tornatore, who directed the popular “Cinema Paradiso,” has concocted.
Hauntingly portrayed by the compelling actress Xenia Rappoport, “The Unknown Woman” Irena, who turns up in an Italian city, deviously worms her way into the world of a couple as their housekeeper looking after their adopted daughter, who has an odd illness that affects her balance. Irena will do anything to find what she is after—and that is the mystery that provides the basis for the film.
The story keeps flashing back to Irena’s previous sordid life. It is also mired in her desperation as she is hunted and in danger. It doesn’t take much to figure out what may have happened in her life that has sent her on this determined effort to learn the truth despite the peril.
“The Unknown Woman” includes ugly, confrontational and violent scenes along the way to its ultimate revelation. But what holds the film together is the portrait of Irena. Tornatore makes a sharp turnabout from the nostalgia-filled deeply human “Cinema Paradiso,” but he shows that he also is skilled at venturing into territory marked by evil. An Outsider Pictures and Medusa release.
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