DIARIES 9

n the early 1950s, having run away from Written in the present tense, Mazzetti’s Italy to work on a potato farm in England, story is repeatedly disrupted by the past – by ILorenza Mazzetti walked into the Slade Style meets attitude the trauma of what happened to her family School of Fine Art in London and declared, during the Second World War. She and her “I’m a genius”. Miraculously, the Slade’s sister Paola were brought up in Tuscany by director, , invited her to A young Italian-born woman’s life in England their aunt Nina and uncle Robert (their come back the following day – and Mazzetti mother, Olga Liberati, had died shortly after ended up being one of the founders of the giving birth to the sisters, and their father influential Free Cinema movement. In 1956, ANNA COATMAN gave custody of the children to a nurse). In she signed her name to a manifesto, which 1944, German officers came to their house, declared: “Perfection is not an aim. An atti- Lorenza Mazzetti looking for Robert (likely targeting him tude means a style. A style means an attitude”. LONDON DIARIES because of his famous cousin, Albert Ein- Mazzetti had plenty of attitude. Using “trea- Translated by Marguerite Waldman stein). Nina begged her husband to hide in the sure” stolen from the Slade, she made her first 173pp. Zidane Press. Paperback, £9.99. woods, and when the officers returned, they film, K, an interpretation of Kafka’s “Meta- 978 0 9562678 5 6 murdered her and her two daughters. Lorenza morphosis”, and then a second, Together, and Paola were spared. A year later, Robert about a friendship between outsiders: two killed himself. In a postscript to the book, deaf-mute dockers (played by her fellow her first experience of eating cornflakes (“It Mazzetti expresses her deep regret about not Slade students Michael Andrews and Edu- seems so wonderful that I’m beside myself discussing her past with her friend and col- ardo Paolozzi) tormented by gangs of East with joy”) to founding the legendary Wood- league Reisz, a Kindertransport refugee. End children. fall Films over “a few curried meatballs and “This is the mystery of survivors: first they Together was the first publicly funded some whiskey”. The narrative is urgent, need to forget in order to survive, and British fiction film directed by a woman, vivid. Mazzetti’s appetite for life is palpable, then ... they are overcome by guilt for having and it was honoured at Cannes in 1956. Yet as is her compulsion to create, to act. “I’ve got forgotten.” Mazzetti, now aged ninety-one, is today less to do something, but I don’t know what ...”, London Diaries provides a missing piece in well known than the other Free Cinema she writes, “... Seize a gun?” the picture of British film. Not only is it full of co-founders, , London Diaries offers a startling account of telling details (such as the fact that Reisz, and . Shortly after Cannes, a young woman’s experience of being alone Anderson and Richardson all speak “perfect she returned to her twin sister in Italy and in a strange place. “In England ... non-com- Lorenza Mazzetti filming Together, Oxbridge English”) and descriptions of the wrote two novels – Il cielo cade (The Sky munication is the law”, Mazzetti observes. London discussions that fed into Free Cinema (Reisz Falls) and Con rabbia (Rage) – before setting London is not only “steeped in silence and asserts that the group is united by a belief in up a puppet theatre for children in . fog”, but sexual harassment too. “It’s so diffi- inside my shirt.” Yet there is also the kindness the importance of “depicting ordinary people Translated into English by Marguerite cult to wander around by myself, even if I go of strangers – at one point, an Indian family and everyday life”), but it places Lorenza Waldman, London Diaries is Mazzetti’s see a movie, there’s always someone who sits invite her into their home to eat with them Mazzetti herself back at the centre of the account of her eventful time in England, from next to me and within minutes has a hand (“They hug me and it makes me cry”). story, where she belongs.

TLS MARCH 29 2019