European Films

"Everything that exists, is beautiful!!!"

A young and idealistic Nicola Carati, who has just finished his last medical school exam and is now backpacking in Norway, writes this condensed vision of life on a postcard to his sister in Rome. It is the summer of 1966 and the entire future lies ahead of him with all of its gleaming possibilities. What the future has in store for him, his brother Matteo and his family and friends is the subject of the six-hour epos La meglio gioventù (The Best of Youth; the title is a line from Pasolini). It seems like a sure thing that Nicola will have to make at least some minor adjustments to his vision on life.

La meglio gioventù is a strange case of filmmaking; it was conceived and filmed as a mini-series of four one-and-a-half hour episodes. The Italian state television RAI, who produced it, was not very happy with the final result, deeming it "too aristocratic" (that is, not accessible enough for the average Italian TV viewer and thus not able to attract enough advertisers) and decided not to show it. Director Marco Tullio Giordana was at his wits’ end when his producer (who also produced 2001 Palme d’Or winner La stanza del figlio/The Son's Room from Nanni Moretti) told him he had been able to get La meglio gioventù a slot at the 2003 Cannes Festival. It was shown as one six-hour work and won over the critics, going home with the top prize in the Un certain regard section. Following this success, it was decided to distribute it theatrically in Italy, divided in two three-hour films. Other countries soon followed while more prizes were added to the collection; it picked up Rotterdam’s and Denver’s Audience Awards and the David (the Italian Oscar equivalent) for Best Film, Best Director, Best Producer and Best Screenplay, among others.

 

In order to show his work on the big screen, Giordana had to blow up his 16mm print to a 35mm print, thus causing visual irregularities throughout the film. La meglio gioventù was not made for the cinema and technically it is inferior to anything I have seen at the cinema for years, including digitally shot murk such as the touching US indie Pieces of April. It is hard to judge this film as a film, since it was not conceived as one and technically it is of a quality not worth the big screen.

 

Let me comment on the content, rather than the technical aspects. Six hours is of course a long duration for any film, but Giordana has to fit in forty years of history of Italy in general and the Caratis in particular. In part one, we get to know the two brothers, the medical graduate Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and his brother Matteo (Alessio Boni), who studied Italian literature but failed his exams. Their mother Adriana (Adriana Asti) is a teacher of Italian literature in a secondary school, but unlike what we would expect, she is much closer to Nicola than to Matteo. Neither their father nor their mother seems to really understand the introvert Matteo, and his brother Nicola sometimes is a bit puzzled by him too. It is clear the two brothers are full of ideals and the innocence of youth, and one of their first actions to make this world a better place is to free a teenage girl called Giorgia (Jasmine Trince), who is held in an institute for difficult children, where she was being treated with electro-shock.         

 

Both brothers are determined to free her from the asylum that is treating her badly and return her to her parents. Their enthusiasm takes a first hit when Giorga's father tells them he does not want her back at all and they are left with the girl on their hands. They both feel something for her, though it is not clear whether it is pure love or a compassionate sort of love.The incident will change the direction of both their lives: Nicola specialises in social psychology and hopes to be able to reform the system from within, whilst Matteo seeks refuge from social injustice in the army, and later, the police.

 

Their stories unfold against the background of some of the historic landmarks of recent Italian history: the floods in Florence of 1966, the student rallies and demonstrations of 1968 and the following years of terror by the Brigate rosse or Red Brigades with the bombings and killings of judges, lawyers and politicians. Nicola and Matteo will meet each other unexpectedly several times, as though they gravitated towards each other without knowing it. Their mutual affection for Giorgia, who has been placed back in an asylum, but one now run by Nicola, seems to remind them of their idealism in their youth, a youth that seems to grow ever more distant from their present.

 

To be able to intertwine the story of their country with the story of one family, the scriptwriters Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli have to keep their protagonists on the move; people live and work in Turin, Rome, Florence, Sicily, Tuscany and on the volcanic island of Stromboli. It gives us a pretty guidebook overview of Italy, but all this hopping around does sometimes feel a bit forced. It is highly unlikely that any one family in Italy personally experienced all of these events at first hand. Nevertheless, the panoramic overview of Italy’s past forty years gives a good sense of time passing by, great events of national importance being alternated with small family happenings such as wedding, funerals and births.

 

When considering the two films, part one is the strongest in terms of narrative: it sets up the characters very well and allows for an emotional bond with the Carati family, all the while moving things along at a brisk pace. Part two feels less coherent and especially towards the end a lot of material could have been cut. After one of the main characters literally disappears out of the picture, the film loses steam and focus. Towards the end, Giordana wants to make a connection with the beginning of the film, but I felt this disturbed the natural flow of the story and of the view of history itself as something not cyclical but linear. It made me wonder whether these two okay three-hour pieces could have been one very good four hour film.

 

La meglio gioventù is an interesting piece of work, as it provides us with a sense of what recent Italian history and  Italian families are like. As a four-episode mini-series, it would rank with the world's finest, but as a cinematic experience, it leaves much to be desired. Buy the DVD instead, and see this in several evenings on the small screen for which it was conceived; just remember that the price of two cinema-tickets will probably buy you the DVD anyways, and you will be able to watch it as often as you like, fast-forwarding your way through part two if need be.

 

Buy the DVD at: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, dvdGO.es, internetbookshop.it.

Browse: nl.bol.com, allposters.com.