The plot of young director Francesca Archibugi's film is straightforward: two desperate parents bring their daughter to a child psychiatrist, convinced she suffers from epilepsy. Their daughter, Pippi, shows no sign of wanting to recover. The specialist probes deeper into Pippi's troubles—problems that may be existential rather than medical. In taking her case seriously as a professional, he also finds himself wrestling with his own personal crisis.
This could be the film's central thread: one problem often masks another, far harder to untangle, which is the real root cause. It's true for Pippi's family, true for the doctor, true for everyone else on screen.
Fair warning: some of the actors are not actors.
Everyone in life searches for "The Big Watermelon"—a reason to get up tomorrow. So says the protagonist (played with care by Sergio Castellitto), a psychiatrist at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I. His existential struggle stays unresolved until he meets Pippi, a child living with epilepsy.
The friendship the two slowly, painfully build becomes the turning point in both their lives. And perhaps in ours too, captured in De Gregori's song "La donna cannone," which anchors one of the film's most moving scenes: "Without a word, I will carry you in my heart." The song accompanies the unfolding stories of other characters, each telling of their own life and suffering. Through these tales, the director lays bare the mystery of life and death—the latter left unanswered: "Lord, why do children die?" they ask in anguish after a small one passes away. Finally, a film that makes us laugh and cry, but above all, a film that asks us questions, that asks us to find our own way.
- Vittoria Terenzi, 1993