The Best Of Youth
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Movie Reviews of The Best Of Youth
Movie Review: Unique and unforgettable: film as novel
Summary: 5 Stars
It takes some time to get into the story of this film, and the filmmakers take their time telling the story. With most films, that would be a criticism, but in this case it is a signal of what is distinctive and wonderful about this film -- easily one of the most worthwhile and compelling fictions ever created for the big screen. After about an hour and a half I was completely hooked and there was no chance I wasn't going to stay and watch both parts of this six-hour film, which is by turns touching, comic, and devastating. (It is not, by the way, that the first hour and a half are slow, but that they are designed to give you time to get to know the characters -- rest assured that the film is never boring -- unless the very idea of a subtitled film about people from another country bores you.) Liberated from the need to tell their story in a two or three hour scope, the filmmakers opted to make it not so much about a single event or action that affects the lives of a few people but about the people themselves as their lives unfold in complex and unpredictable ways in connection with the events taking place in Italy and in their families over a period of three decades: a wonderful cast of characters played by remarkable actors who show them convincingly aging and changing over the course of about thirty years. We have time to get to know them, and care about them as people, to the point where they become like family. It is hard to credit before watching this film the claims by numerous critics that after six hours they didn't want it to be over -- but in my case at the end I absolutely agreed. Though it is not strictly speaking necessary and the film already comes to a perfect conclusion -- and is probably impossible, given that the film ends in the year 2000 -- I found myself wishing there were a third part. In that sense, it is closer to television or to the novel than to most films. It is also close to television in its intimacy, told as it is mostly through closeups -- but it is wonderful to see that intimate attention to detail brought to life on the big screen. Still, for its scope and grandeur and power, and for its ability to connect intimate details to issues of extremely wide scope both historical and contemporary, it is very much a cinematic epic. There are a few moments that test the credibility of the audience -- but somehow it all works to give the kind of enjoyable and moving experience that we often seek but rarely find in the cinema. Definitely a film to see in the theaters if you get lucky enough to have the chance (Miramax has done a very poor job distributing this: holding on to it for a couple of years and then not knowing what to do with it and getting it out to only a few theaters: now it is running the College film festival circuit, so keep an eye out for it there; I got the chance to see it only because I brought it to the film series I run in Saint Petersburg, FL), but it is definitely a must when it comes out on DVD in February.Movie Review: An Epic Film Rich in History, Wondrously Performed
Summary: 5 Stars
La Meglio gioventù (THE BEST OF YOUTH) is a spellbinding drama that sweeps the viewer through Italian history from 1966 through 2003 as distilled in the lives of one family. Writers Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli have created a screenplay that is both informative to those of us who did not live this period in Italian political disturbance and simultaneously passionate in the creation of a group of people surrounding two brothers who propel the story with heartrending power.
Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni) are brothers in Rome in the Carati family - mother Adriana (Adriana Asti), father Angelo (Andrea Tidona) and sisters Francesca (Valentina Carnelutti) and Giovanna (Lidia Vitale). Nicola and Matteo are devoted to each other despite their polarity of differences in personalities and beliefs. With their childhood friends Carlo (Fabrizio Gifuni) and Vitale (Claudio Gioè) they begin their an adventure of travel to the northern regions of the globe, but Nicola and Matteo encounter and rescue a young abused girl Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca) who is confined in an asylum, a pause for humanity reasons that alters their lives forever. Matteo joins the military and then the police force while Nicola travels to Norway to work as a hippie laborer. He returns to Italy after the flood of Florence, and meets Giulia (Sonia Bergamasco) a talented piano player who sympathizes with the Red Brigade of socialism. Matteo, as an angry rebel spirit travels to Sicily where he encounters and encourages photographer Mirella (Maya Sansa). Due in part to his devotion to Giorgia's plight, Nicola becomes a psychiatrist. These four main characters then are the keys to the story which lives through the myriad terrorist political upheavals in Italy during that forty year period but also demonstrate the profound effect that family and friendship have on shaping the destinies of all concerned.
Of course the story is far richer than this brief synopsis (the film is after all over six hours long!) and it is conducted like a symphony by the gifted director Marco Tullio Giordana. Originally screened as a television miniseries in Italy, the six hourly episodes are seamlessly joined for the award winning theatrical release and the result the film is a drama that stirs every emotion in the human spirit. It boasts brilliant cinematography by Roberto Forza and a musical score that is fine pastiche of works by Bach, Georges Delerue, Mozart, Astor Piazzolla, and Giovanni Sollima. The cast succeeds in brandishing talent so deeply embedded in their characters that each becomes part of the viewers' psyche. This is a stunning film, one that once seen will probably find its way into the permanent film libraries of those who appreciate great cinematic art. An exceptional visual and emotional experience. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, March 06
Movie Review: Unforgettable
Summary: 5 Stars
I have not written a review for Amazon in at least three years, but having seen The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventu') I find myself wanting to write a review again. I have taken on an almost messianic role in sharing the beauty that is this film. I've rented it at the video store and lent it to family, colleagues and friends. I've watched it alone, and then was compelled to watch it again with my wife. I still struggle to understand why this film is so beautiful, moving and engaging. I can only say that it is all those things and more. I have no doubt that the haunting soundtrack, and the notes of Astor Piazzolla's 'Oblivion' in particular, contibute to the film's impact; in fact the use of music in this film (as is the case in most Italian cinematic productions) is very well done. I thought that the film affected me in a particular way because I was born in the very same period that the film begins, and so I have witnessed most of the film's historical background events, right down to a drive in an green Alfa Romeo Giulia ti (makes an appearance in the film), which was the first car I remember being my father driving. However, I have heard and witnessed people having no such direct experiences, not speaking Italian for that matter, being just as moved as I was by this film. It must be the exceptional and intelligent dialogue. Brilliant insights that apply to everyone, without being pedantic or critical. It is the photography (in spite of TV budget meakeup, but really, who cares when the rest is so good?, the scenery, and perhaps the personal humanity of the actors themesleves, Luigi lo Cascio 'in primis' who can be so funny at the most unexpected moments. In fact, I feel sorry for non-Italian speakers who miss the comic - but well timed and executed - intonations of various Italian accents by Lo Cascio's character, Nicola Carati. He also gets the most memorable lines. two of the best occur when a sarcastic Nicola criticizes Giulia's emerging political fanaticism and then in a quiet chat with his daughter, when he tells her that it is important to be generous when life is treating you well. I'm writing thsi review, and I should be working, so I have not dealt with the subject to the extent I wanted; however, I hope that I conveyed my enthusiasm for this film, a film that has affected me like no other. teh one regret is that after seeing this film, nothing else will move you as much and most films even good ones will leave you longing for the mix of emotions that only 'The Best of Youth' can offer. It is that good.Movie Review: Best of Youth Still Believes in Exclamation Marks
Summary: 5 Stars
If you have the 6+ hours - even if you don't - free them up to travel through Best of Youth. If this movie/miniseries had been around when I was the age of the Carnati offspring in the 60s, I might have lived my life very differently. It doesn't try to explain why the world is as it is.
I could rapsodized about the seamless acting, directing, writing, and photography, but what would that mean? Nor will I comment on any imperfections of this production because it swept me off my feet and embraced me with all its characters. There was no time to nitpick. Edmond Rostand or Steve Martin wrote - why sip from a teacup when you can drink from the river?-- This movie is a river of life. Do you need to review how a river runs?
It is so spiritoso that you will pick up Italian. It is so thoughtful that you will question whether you have to come back to the U.S. - I mean in front of your monitor. It will point out that our elders heard castanets in their time and may have learned some wisdom about life and our partners we should learn too. We need to open our minds and listen. What it says about love and the lack of it is a lot by just telling a good long story.
It is wonderful to see a European movie that sees women more complex than the mama or the troubled, nude femme fatale that gets the menfolk all worked up. It is refreshing how men can be portrayed as being invested in making things better through a regular life than having to kamakazi into eachother or sexual partners. Good people in the troubled spots in the world can ask each other, -- Are you happy? Don't you feel generous?. It is an empowering movie that we need at a time when volatile decisions are made on both sides of explosions. The rest of us have to try to clean up the mess and welcome babies and realize elders often tried to do the best they could given how much there is to do. Best of Youth made me happy. I feel generous. Where do I start to clean up the mud? Questo filme e molto bello.
Movie Review: A beautiful and moving melodrama
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is such a gem! It's a long long story of an Italian family that will lead you from the 1960s to our days through their personal vicissitudes. It's a story about Italy, about history, about family, love, fatherhood and moderhoods, about friendship, about a beautiful beautiful place that yes is full of troubles but is not just a "beautiful and useless country", as one of the many splendid cameo characters declares towards the beginning of the movie (and how could something beautiful be useless anyway?).
This is melodrama at its best. It is intelligent, sad, sometimes tragic, sometimes truly fun and comic (a little bit of the comicity may be missed if you are not Italian, because some of the characters often joke using exaggerated regional accents that may not be easy to identify for a foreigner). Actors are good, at times great, at times a bit overacting, but who cares, the story is so absorbing, and many of the characters are so lovable that you really would like to jump into the movie and talk to them, help them out. Nicola, one of the two brothers who are the central characters of the movie is such a sensitive, intelligent and courageous individual that you can't help wishing him well.
Once you decide to watch this movie, set aside a whole long long evening with your family or friends, because you will want to watch it all, and it's a long six hours that will fly away, and it will leave probably a bit sad at the end, like when you finish a book that you loved.
I don't know, maybe it's also because because I am Italian, but this movie really moved me, and made me want to take a plane and go back to my country right away, to hug my mom and dad, to lose myself in the Tuscan countryside, to gather at a house in the hills, and sit at a table in the garden eating and drinking with my spendid childhood friends, who are no less splendid that this movie's characters.