A (not so) discreet charm «I consider the bathroom a privileged film space, with aesthetic characteristics that are very exploitable from a cinematic point of view» explains Raffaella De Antonellis, professor of film criticism at the National Autonomous University of Mexico City and author of the essay El purgatorio del Cine (ed. Ojas).

A book that analyses the most significant sequences shot not in private bathrooms but in public toilets, therefore moving between service stations, hotels, restaurants, shopping centres, train stations or airports.

Spaces with a somewhat standardized aesthetic, which, at every latitude, all tend to resemble each other.

«Once you open the bathroom door, you enter a shared space with sinks, a mirror, soaps and towels, and a row of cubicle doors with toilets. A place subjected to the public/private dichotomy, as well as to the transformations of the moral values ​​of society, especially those connected to the functions, practices and images of the body» continues the author.

It is in public toilets in fact that, in films, illegal actions are carried out such as hiding or consuming drugs, fighting, hiding or taking a weapon, killing or committing suicide. Or having sex, heterosexual or homosexual but, in any case, almost always clandestine.

Aesthetic and symbolic elements

If the toilet is the room that - from a real and symbolic point of view - collects our dirt, doing "dirty things" in this place is almost putting things back in order.

"It's as if violence could be more acceptable in the bathroom. At the same time, this is a place of purification. And so here are the scenes in which one takes refuge in the bathroom to confess a secret to a friend, to cry without being seen or find a moment of reflection".

All this against a chromatic background characterized by a rather limited palette.

"White almost always dominates, in all its variations, making it the perfect backdrop to highlight the blood splatters like in a Pollock painting, like in a memorable sequence from Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. But white also evokes feelings of calm, spirituality and peace: even in the noisiest places, this is the quietest and brightest room."

White, but with floor tiles that create graphic effects, is the bathroom in which the conservatory teacher Isabelle Huppert has sex with her young student (Hanecke's The Pianist); green and with white fixtures is the bathroom chosen by Scorsese for the scene in The Aviator in which DiCaprio has a hygienic mania crisis; white and red blood (a premonition?) finally is that of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining in which Kubrick sets the meeting between the disturbing Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, and his dark side represented by the waiter, Mr. Grady.

And that the two are the souls of the same person is suggested to us by the overlapping of the field that leads to confusing the two figures.

The role of the mirror colors aside, the other elements of the scene are recurring. «The mirror, the tiles, the row of sinks and taps, the toilet doors that don't reach the floor, the tilting windows, the cold light: even if it's not easy to shoot in such a small place, the camera exploits all these elements.

Starting with the mirror, which can simply reflect the image of the protagonist intent on washing his hands or reveal something that is behind him, perhaps the shadow of someone who is spying on him or of someone who is hiding.

In a film the mirror makes the characters appear or disappear, it is as if it opened another door, a privileged place of recognition and, therefore, of identity» continues Raffaella de Antonellis. But another decisive contribution to the atmosphere is given by the sound.

That of running water, of a neon light that is burning or of the noises coming from behind the door of a toilet: is it sex or violence?

«In Witness by Peter Weir, a film from 1985, the bathroom finally becomes a refuge. It happens in the famous scene in which a young boy, an involuntary witness to a murder, hides in the toilet of a train station.

The scene is very tense: we see the child's eye peering between the doors of the bathroom and, on the other side, the murderer who, gun in hand, searches for him and, one by one, violently opens all the doors.

The viewer knows where the little boy is hiding and the tension grows until, even the last door is opened, the murderer finds no one: to increase the suspense, here is an off-screen shot that shows us the child standing on the toilet in the previous cubicle». And in a few minutes, a scene shot in the narrow space of a bathroom gives the viewer a thousand emotions.