''Cattiva'' (internationally released as ''The Wicked'') is a

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Carlo Lizzani Carlo Lizzani (3 April 1922 – 5 October 2013) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and critic. Biography Born in Rome, before World War II Lizzani worked as a scenarist on such films as Roberto Rossellini's ''Germany Year Zero'', ...

. The film is loosely based on real life events of

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

, the founder of

analytical psychology Analytical psychology ( de , Analytische Psychologie, sometimes translated as analytic psychology and referred to as Jungian analysis) is a term coined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, to describe research into his new "empirical science" ...

, and of

Sabina Spielrein Sabina Nikolayevna Spielrein ( rus, Сабина Николаевна Шпильрейн, p=sɐˈbʲinə nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvnə ʂpʲɪlʲˈrɛjn; 7 November 25 October 1885 OS – 11 August 1942) was a Russian physician and one of the first fema ...

. For this film

Giuliana De Sio Giuliana De Sio (born 2 April 1956) is an Italian actress, the younger sister of pop-folk singer Teresa De Sio. She won two David di Donatello for Best Actress and different Silver Ribbons for Best Actress. Biography and career Giuliana De Si ...

was awarded with a

David di Donatello The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's ''David'', a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the ''Accademia del Cinema Italiano'' (The Academy of Italian Cinema). There are 26 award cat ...

for

Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress awar ...

Plot

In the early twentieth century, the young Italian-born Emilia Schmidt leads a comfortable life in Switzerland, with her husband and little son Ludwig, but shows from time to time signs of mental imbalance. She is admitted to a luxurious

clinic A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambulatory care clinic) is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs ...

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

, where she receives the diagnosis of

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...

due to her behavior, thus being defined as "wicked". However, Professor

Gustav Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to: *Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin Art, entertainment, and media * ''Primeval'' (film), a 2007 American horror film * ''Gustav'' (film series), a Hungarian series of animated short cart ...

, a young assistant to the clinic's head physician, Professor Brokner, becomes passionate about her case; using the innovative research of Dr.

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

, he is able to partially cure her. This allows Emilia to leave the clinic, not completely cured, but released from her neuroses and confident in Gustav's promise to continue monitoring her health in the future.

Cast

as Emilia *

Julian Sands Julian Richard Morley Sands''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, ...

Erland Josephson Erland Josephson (; 15 June 1923 – 25 February 2012) was a Swedish actor and author. He was best known by international audiences for his work in films directed by Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky and Theodoros Angelopoulos. Life and career J ...

as Prof. Brokner *

Milena Vukotic Milena Vukotic (, ; born 23 April 1935) is an Italian former ballerina and a stage, television, and film actress. Biography Vukotic was born in Rome, to a Serb Montenegrin comedy playwright father and an Italian pianist/composer mother. A ...

as Annette, a patient in the clinic *

Didi Perego Didi Perego (13 April 1935 – 28 June 1993) was a statuesque Italian actress who appeared in more than 80 films and television shows. She made her film debut in 1959's ''Death of a Friend''. The same year, she starred in perhaps her best-known ...

as Chief nurse * as Mitzi, Emilia's maid * Stefano Lescovelli as Leopold Schmidt, Emilia's husband * as Marta, Emilia's sister *

Massimo Venturiello Massimo Venturiello (born 4 August 1957) is an Italian actor and voice actor. Biography Born in Roccadaspide, Province of Salerno, in 1982 Venturiello graduated at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of dramatic Arts in Rome and the same year he made hi ...

as Enrico Carossi, Emilia's childhood friend * Flaminia Lizzani as Anna, Gustav's girlfriend * as Emilia's mother

References

External links

* *
''The Wicked''
at

FilmAffinity FilmAffinity is a movie recommendations website created in 2002 in Madrid, Spain by the film critic Pablo Kurt Verdú Schumann and the programmer Daniel Nicolás. As of 2016, the site listed 125,000 movies and series and had 556,000 reviews wri ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wicked 1991 films Films about psychoanalysis Films directed by Carlo Lizzani Films scored by Armando Trovajoli Italian drama films Cultural depictions of Carl Jung 1990s Italian-language films