La meglio gioventú (the best of youth) is an epic story about two
brothers, their family and their friends against the background of the Italian
history.
We meet
them in the sixties. Both Nicola and Matteo are studying at university and the
family has especially high expectations of Matteo. Both brothers want to go to
the Northcape to see life outside of Italy.
Matteo
volunteers in a psychiatric hospital and meets patient Giorgia. Psychiatric
care was not very good in Italy in those days and Matteo cares for the girl.
Nicola also gets involved and both decide to take the girl out of the hospital
to bring her home. Unfortunately this does not go according to plan and Giorgia
is taken back to the institution.
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| Giorgia and Matteo, when they first meet |
For Matteo
this is a breaking-point. He decides to drop out of university, to not go with
his brother to Norway, but to join the army instead.
Nicola is
furious and goes to Norway on his own, but he returns to Italy when a flood
threatens the city of Florence to help with the rescue-work and here he meets
Matteo again who is in Florence with the army to help.
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| Matteo and Nicola in Florence in 1966 |
Nicola also
meets here the love of his life, Giulia. He now stays in Italy and studies
medicine, to become a psychiatrist. Giulia and he are involved in the student
protest-movement, but where Nicola is getting more serious about his work and
reforming the psychiatric system, Giulia is getting more radical and eventually
even leaves Nicola and their daughter to join the Red Brigades.
Matteo in
the meantime has left the army and has become a policeman. He is not a happy
man. The structure of the army and the police force give him some peace of mind
and in his free time he can read all the books he wants, but he does not feel
connected to his family and the world around him.
This
changes when he meets the photographer Mirella, but Matteo is convinced this
happiness will not last and makes a decision that will impact everyone who
knows him.
 |
| Mirella |
We follow
both brothers, the family and their friends from the sixties up to the end of
the century. All important moment in Italian history are there, through the
eyes of the experiences of the people we get to know so well.
The flood
in Florence in 1966, the student protests of 1968, the years of led, the Red Brigades,
the mass unemployment at FIAT, the reforms in the psychiatric care and much
more. These defining moments are never the main focus, but we get to know about
them through the characters. That is why it is never boring and why it never
feels like you are watching a documentary.
The same
actors play the characters in 1965 and in 2000 and this is done really well,
you can see the characters age and act and walk different than they did before,
their age but also their experiences changes them.
La meglio gioventú is almost 6 hours, and for me, this is not a
problem. For me, this is one of the most beautiful films ever made, and the
whole 6 hours I am glued to the screen, watching these excellent actors play
their parts, no become the people they
portray.
Alessio Boni as Matteo is my favorite, he knows to give
Matteo something so broken and so fragile, yet so frustrated and angry at the
same time, that my heart breaks for him. The last 1 ½ hour of the film I cannot
watch without crying.
 |
| Matteo |
Other
amazing actors are Luigi di Cascio
as Nicola, Sonia Bergamasco as
Giulia and Jasmine Trinca as
Giorgia. I also really liked Maya Sansa
as Mirella, and I wished things could have worked out for her and Matteo.
So, if you
haven’t seen this film yet, do not get frightened by the fact it is almost 6
hours long, but just watch it, enjoy it and submerge yourself.
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