Secret lovers in Italy

A well-off Italian wife and doctor (Margherita Buy) loses her young husband in a traffic accident. Finding an amorous note on the back of a painting that hung in his office, she seeks out the donor, suspecting that she is his lover. Well, yes - and no.

A handsome young chap answers to the description, and suddenly the wife has to grapple with the fact that she has lived seven years with a husband who was often in another man's arms. If it seems far-fetched that any wife - especially a doctor dealing with HIV patients - should remain so immune to the truth, it is to the credit of film-maker Ferzan Ozpetek, the Turkish-born director of Hamam, that he makes it credible by concentrating on the still-closeted status of many homosexual people in Italy - a country that often projects masculine prowess from the safe refuge of Mama's love.

The sense of a society in subtle conflict with itself is sharpened by having a foreign pair of eyes to expose it in the details of the commune that Michele (Stefano Accorsi), the male lover who is also a prosperous fruit-market importer, has set up in his home with other gays, transsexuals and den mothers. I have heard that some gays consider such characters to be stereotypes.

Perhaps so; but stereotypes are not necessarily untruthful, simply unimaginative. The playing here is uncaricatured and sympathetic, and although the wife's exploration of this semisecret society and temptation to join it are ultimately sentimental, Ignorant Fairies has a convincing and level-headed tenderness.

Le Fate Ignoranti (Ignorant Fairies)
Cert: 15