Sexuality that Creates; Sexuality that Destroys

The article discusses the film Assandira (Salvatore Mereu, 2020) through the author’s reflection on binary oppositions and interdependent parallelisms. In the film, these are expressed through the relationships between the modern and the traditional, the urban and the rural, between family and excessive sexuality. Mereu belongs to the generation of Sardinian film directors that is trying to place Sardinia beyond the stereotypical notions of the “backwardness” and “underdevelopment” of the country and its people. To some extent, the director succeeds in this, but only according to the principle that the modern and the traditional always exist side by side, but are not really compatible. In this sense, Assandira reinforces the notions of the incompatibility of binary oppositions centred around the opposition between the modern and the traditional, which can be illuminated by two aspects of sexuality portrayed throughout the film: sexuality associated with holiness and family, on the one hand, and sexuality associated with obscenity and excess, on the other.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!