Luca Guadagnino’s documentary about the celebrated Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo reaches for romance and glamour, but falters during transitions.
Arriving two weeks before the release of “Bones and All,” Luca Guadagnino’s tatterdemalion drifter romance, the director’s “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams” surveys a more refined coupling, not of people, but of pumps.
The documentary opens on an assembly line, where a suite of artisans methodically carve, sculpt and hammer out a pair of sequined vermilion stilettos. Before we even meet the film’s subject, the Italian designer Salvatore Ferragamo, this mesmerizing procedural overture suggests that Ferragamo viewed shoemaking as an art and a science. One wishes the tribute that follows were as nimble.
Plodding through Ferragamo’s life, the documentary layers talking-head interviews with archival footage and photographs. Born in 1898 in the Italian village of Bonito, Ferragamo went on to apprentice in Naples before taking arduous passage to the United States. Following his ambition, or perhaps a premonition, he moved to Santa Barbara, where he found success designing custom footwear for movie stars. Throughout, Michael Stuhlbarg reads passages from Ferragamo’s writing in a velvety murmur. “I love feet,” he recites at one point. “They talk to me.”
Guadagnino clearly intends for these themes of seduction, allure and glamour to envelop the audience, like silk fabric swathing an arched foot sole. Instead, the film falters, particularly during transitions, which tend to feel abrupt. If Guadagnino sought to reflect the romance of Ferragamo’s red carpet creations, his storytelling is at once more conventional and more awkward in construction. Forget feet; defter hands might have helped.
Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams
Rated PG. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
