Indivisible

Near the ancient crime-ridden southern Italian city of Napoli, plagued by high unemployment, a ragtag family of musicians travel the countryside in an old van posing as a religious group with their conjoined twin daughters, Daisy and Viola, who were born attached at the hip and sing inspirational songs claiming to be holy saints.

The teenage twin sisters, despite their identical appearance, clearly have very different personalities and they share more than just their stunning voices. When one eats or drinks alcohol the other suffers from the digestion and drunkenness.

One day, while performing at a private birthday party, a doctor tells them and their controlling father that they don’t need to live their lives attached to each other. Modern medicine can perform a simple operation that can easily separate them and allow them to live normal lives.

Imagining their independence for the first time, as they were told they could never be separated, one of the teenage twins is immediately interested in this operation. But the family’s livelihood and the main reason that they are a popular attraction depends on their unique disability; a ‘miracle of god’ creation. Their father runs the show and books the gigs and has no interest in separating them, as it will spell the end of his lucrative scam.

When they learn that their father has been exploiting them for profit and gambled away all their savings, they are faced with the grim realization that they don’t have the money for the operation. But the girls become more determined than ever and decide to take matters into their own hands.

After escaping, they soon find themselves on a harrowing odyssey through rough and seedy regions alone for the first time to secure a better future for themselves. But as they approach their goal and ponder the prospect of not always being near each other, they may not be able to come to terms with the pain that separation will bring.

Filmed by director Edoardo de Angelis in the rundown dilapidated shores of Castel Volturno just north of Naples, we are shown the gypsy lifestyle of this close knit unscrupulous family as they are torn apart by greed and selfishness when the promise of a better life is offered to their unfortunate daughters.

One thing that Daisy and Viola do have plenty of is determination and drive. Despite their fears and insecurities, they never stop pursuing their dream of independence regardless of the dangers. That’s what keeps us rooting for them throughout the film.

Indivisible is a suspenseful and moving experience that immerses us in the desperate world of Daisy and Viola who represent all that is good and innocent in a world full of corruption. They are played with conviction and passion by the beautiful real-life identical twin sisters Angela and Marianna Fontana, who are making their feature film debut.

One of the best and delightfully surprising films I saw at the tiff16 festival this year, Indivisible is a crowd-pleaser that’s already generating award buzz and narrowly missed out by one vote of becoming the official foreign Oscar Entry for Italy. 

Be sure to run out and find this Italian treasure when it’s released in cinemas.

JP