DVD Review: Altina

Altina is a documentary on Altina Schinasi, an artist who created the famous harlequin eyeglasses. Altina is largely allowed to tell her own tale, with this film centering on interviews conducted with her in 1991. She is really able to weave a good tale herself, making outside narration and title cards unnecessary. For example, early in the film, while talking about her parents and her sisters, she says: “Once a year, we gave a play, and that was the big event of the year. And my oldest sister, who was very beautiful, played the heroine. And my middle sister played the witch, and she turned out to be a witch. And I played the hero, the boy. I wanted very badly to be a boy. I used to stand in front of the mirror and I’d close my eyes and say when I open my eyes I’m going to be a boy. Well, of course it never happened.”

The film focuses on her life, only sometimes getting into the details of her art. Perhaps its one failing is that it really doesn’t give much information on just when and how she got started in the artistic field. But her life is so interesting, and she’s such a good storyteller, that we don’t really mind that one thing lacking. She does, of course, talk about designing her famous glasses, using harlequin masks as inspiration, and about her early attempts to sell them. The film presents several photos of the glasses, as well as her other work. There is also footage from an episode of Good Morning America from 1979, in which she talked about her sculptures.

In addition to interviews with Altina herself, the film fills out the story by presenting the perspectives of family members, including her son Terry Sanders, her niece Laurette de Moro, her nephew Richard Pini, her stepdaughter Teresa Carey, and her third and fourth husbands. The film was directed by Altina’s grandson, Peter Sanders, which really helps to give the film an intimate feel, like a family project that you’ve been invited to observe.

The story of her life is in some ways the story of this country in the twentieth century, it being connected to some of the major events and people of recent history. And because of that, there is some old news footage mixed in, such as material from World War II and the McCarthy witch hunts, and footage of Martin Luther King. But mainly it is Altina herself who tells us her story, and it is she herself that keeps us interested.

Special Features

The DVD contains a couple of bonus features. Reflections On Altina contains more footage from the interviews with Altina, in which she talks about how her sisters didn’t like her all that much, and about not speaking ill of people, and she recounts the meeting between her first and second husbands. This feature also contains more from interviews with other artists and with family members. Reflections On Altina is approximately nineteen minutes.

There is also a photo and art gallery, which is approximately three minutes long.

Altina was released on DVD on December 16, 2014 through First Run Features.