Long live the monkey

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trailer

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Long live the monkey (Viva la scimmia)

Long live the monkey (Viva la scimmia)

Long live the monkey (Viva la scimmia)

original title:

Viva la scimmia

directed by:

cinematography:

set design:

costume design:

production:

distribution:

country:

Italy

year:

2000

film run:

82'

format:

colour

release date:

29/11/2002

The grotesque drama of two unmarried sisters is played out in a rundown middle-class apartment block, inhabited by people from all walks of life. The return of one of the sisters, in fact, jazzes up the lives of everyone in the building. Although wildly different the two women are weighed down by the same background and their cultural baggage of bourgeois respectability and pious hypocrisy.
Completely under the thumb of their elderly handicapped mother, they both worship a little monkey called Tombo, all they have left of their father who died in Africa many years before. Both sisters are desperately trying to get rid of guilt feelings for sins they never committed: the meek Lilla by becoming a devout Christian; the rebellious Nena, by throwing herself into life and its many pleasures.
The death of their mother and the sacrilege of Tombo, who has profaned the chapel of a nearby convent upsets the very delicate status quo...
From the novel by Tommaso Landolfi "Le due zitelle"