The Unknown Woman Movie Review

Most moviegoers know Giuseppe Tornatore as the director of that most kind-hearted of classics, Cinema Paradiso. Prepare yourself then for wading into The Unknown Woman, about as different a movie as could be made. You'll know it right from the beginning: The movie opens with sex and violence as women are trotted naked before a hidden man -- he's obviously selecting among them for some purpose -- before segueing to scenes of sweaty bondage, rape, and abuse.

Things abruptly change -- as we jump to the future, it turns out -- when we follow the aforementioned young and sweaty blond woman to a later point in her life. It's difficult to explain what happens in An Unknown Woman without giving away too much, but in a nutshell we follow the Ukranian Irena (a brilliant and brave Kseniya Rappoport) to Italy. She looks like hell but she's flush with cash. And for some reason she's obsessed with a well-off family who has a young daughter. Irena begins to insinuate into the family's life -- moving in across the street, getting a job as a maid in their building, and -- as things take an even more disturbing turn -- she knocks the family's housekeeper down the stairs, paralyzing her. Irena applies for the now-vacant job, and now she's in their home.

Putting together all the pieces of The Unknown Woman takes some attention, but it's





Aka La sconosciuta.