A Pure Formality
| A Pure Formality | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Written by | Giuseppe Tornatore Pascal Quignard |
| Produced by | Bruno Altissimi Mario Cecchi Gori Vittorio Cecchi Gori Jean-Louis Livi Alexandre Mnouchkine Claudio Saraceni |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Blasco Giurato |
| Edited by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
Production companies | Cecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematografica DD Productions Film Par Film Orly Films Sidonie TF1 Films Production |
| Distributed by | AFMD (1994, France) Penta Distribuzione (1994, Italy) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
| Countries | Italy France |
| Language | French |
A Pure Formality (Italian: Una pura formalità) is a 1994 Italian-French drama thriller film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, who also co-wrote the script with author Pascal Quignard. It stars Gérard Depardieu as a suspect and Roman Polanski as a senior police officer. The story takes place over one night and centers on the interrogation of the former by the latter, pertaining to an unspecified crime.
Plot
[edit]During a stormy night, in a remote and mountainous area, a gunshot is heard in a forest. A disoriented, rain-soaked man is then arrested and brought to the local police station.
The man, who has no identification documents and no memories of recent events, is interrogated by the police commissioner (station superintendent); he identifies himself as Onoff, a celebrated and famously reclusive writer. The commissioner, who turns out to be a literature enthusiast, is initially skeptical, as the man lacks Onoff's distinctive beard; he questions the detainee about Onoff's writings, until he is eventually satisfied that the man is indeed the famous author.
Having specified that a crime has been committed and that Onoff is a suspect, the commissioner tries to establish events through careful interrogation and deduction, as Onoff contradicts himself multiple times. The two men verbally spar over the whole night; during a power outage caused by the weather, Onoff tries to escape but is recaptured after stepping into a wolf trap.
Onoff gradually recounts his life. He admits that much of his official biography has been invented and that his real name is Biagio Febbraio; his surname (February in Italian) comes from the fact that he was an abandoned child, found in February. He also acknowledges that he has been struggling with severe writer's block, eventually becoming unable to produce new books. His relationship with Paola, his secretary and lover, has deteriorated over time and they had an ugly spat the previous day.
Onoff ultimately comes to the realization that he is both the perpetrator and victim of the crime, having committed suicide earlier that evening, and that the police station is a supernatural place where he is being kept as part of his transition to the afterlife.
At dawn, Onoff quietly gets into a police truck. The commissioner, now friendly and courteous, congratulates him on the yet unpublished novel that he had completed just before dying.
Cast
[edit]- Gérard Depardieu - Onoff
- Roman Polanski - Commissioner
- Sergio Rubini - Young Policeman
- Nicola Di Pinto - Captain
- Tano Cimarosa - Orderly
- Paolo Lombardi - Marshall
- Maria Rosa Spagnolo - Paola
- Massimo Vanni
Production
[edit]An Italian-French coproduction, the film was made with 70% Italian financing.[1] Interiors were shot at Cinecittà studios. Other scenes were filmed in the Piedmont and Abruzzo regions of Italy, in Rocca Calascio, Motta de' Conti and Santo Stefano di Sessanio.[2]
Reception
[edit]A Pure Formality competed as an Italian entry at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival,[1] where it won no awards.[3] It received a David di Donatello for Best Production Design (Andrea Crisanti).
Critical reception in Italy was negative.[4] In France, Le Monde gave the film a mixed review, finding it occasionnally meandering but praising some of the atmosphere and the performances of Depardieu and Polanski.[5] L'Express gave the film a positive review, finding it "fascinating",[6] whereas Télérama panned it, commenting that "everything rings false" and that the picture came as a major disappointment from the director of Cinema Paradiso.[7] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10.[8]
The film was commercially unsuccessful, both in Italy[9] and in France.[10] It received limited theatrical distribution in the United States, where it made $190.749 at the box office.[10]
Tornatore later said that the film's poor reception had prompted him to make his next one, The Star Maker, as soon as he could.[4]
References
[edit]- 1 2 "CANNES/ITALIE Quatre films transalpins en compétition officielle Sous l'euphorie, la crise". Le Monde (in French). 1994-05-17. Retrieved 2026-09-04.
- ↑ "Dove è stato girato 'Una pura formalità'". italyformovies.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Festival de Cannes: A Pure Formality". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 2015-10-19. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
- 1 2 "Giuseppe Tornatore: "Ho il complesso dell'opera prima"". Cinecittà News (in Italian). 2026-03-24. Retrieved 2026-09-04.
- ↑ "FESTIVAL DE CANNES SELECTION OFFICIELLE UNE PURE FORMALITE de Giuseppe Tornatore Ni mort ni vif". Le Monde (in French). 1994-05-17. Retrieved 2026-09-04.
- ↑ Médioni, Gilles (1994-05-12). "L'aveu de Tornatore". L'Express (in French). Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Une pure formalité". Télérama (in French). 1994-05-21. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "A Pure Formality". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2 July 2026.
- ↑ "Una pura formalità". Mymovies.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- 1 2 "Une pure formalité". JP Box office (in French). Retrieved 2026-09-24.