La meglio gioventù

Plot synopsis:
The Best of Youth is a family saga set in Italy from 1966 through 2003. It chronicles the life of an Italian family, the Caratis, but focuses primarily on two brothers, Matteo (Alessio Boni) and Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), documenting their journey from the prime of their wild youth in the mid-1960s counterculture, to parenthood and retirement in the early 2000s. The film aims to show the interaction of the personal and the political, the ways in which small events may become turning points in the important choices made by individuals.
=== 1966 summer ===
Two brothers go their separate ways after attempting to rescue a young girl, Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), from an abusive sanitarium. The brothers are Matteo and Nicola Carati (Alessio Boni and Luigi Lo Cascio). Their parents are Angelo (Andrea Tidona) and Adriana (Adriana Asti), their older sister is Giovanna (Lidia Vitale), and their younger sister is Francesca (Valentina Carnelutti). Their friends, their lovers and others drift through, including Giorgia who struggles with mental issues, but whose life seems to follow in parallel.
Matteo walks out of his first exam, while Nicola qualifies as a doctor (and will pursue a career in psychiatry). Matteo takes mental patients for walks to help them begin to feel normal and takes a particular interest in his patient Giorgia. Noticing that Giorgia has been wounded by electroshock therapy, he decides to remove her from the institution and take her along with him and Nicola—who are about to go on a trip to Norway.
Eventually, Giorgia is captured by the police and taken back to the asylum. Matteo, filled with sadness and depression, returns to Rome and joins the army. Nicola continues to Norway and gets a job as a lumberjack. The brothers meet again in Florence just after the 1966 Arno River flood. Here, Nicola meets a university student, Giulia (Sonia Bergamasco).
=== 1968 February ===
Nicola and Giulia are living together in Turin, but the two do not marry.
=== 1974 ===
Matteo leaves the army and joins the police force. During this time, Matteo shows signs of continuing depression and anger. He accepts an assignment in Sicily, a place corrupted by the Mafia. Meanwhile, Nicola and Giulia conceive and care for Sara, their daughter.
=== 1977 ===
In Sicily, Matteo meets a photographer in a caffè named Mirella (Maya Sansa). She wants to be a librarian, and he advises her to work at a beautiful library in Rome.
Because of his temper, Matteo is forced to leave Sicily. He decides to reside in Rome but refuses to visit his mother.
Meanwhile, Nicola becomes a psychiatrist, and works to eliminate the abuse and maltreatment of patients in mental hospitals. He finds Giorgia in one of these hospitals. She is tied to a bed in inhumane conditions, does not talk, and shows fear of being touched by others. After some time, Giulia gets drawn into a secret Red Brigades cell. One night, she leaves Nicola and Sara and disappears into the terrorist underground.
=== 1983 ===
Years later Matteo walks into that same library and sees Mirella for the second time. They fall in love, and one evening, make love in a car. Eventually he pushes her away.
=== 1983 December ===
Mirella meets with Matteo with news for him, but he behaves so harshly to her that she does not tell him that she is pregnant with his child. On New Year's Eve, Matteo decides to finally visit his mother. Everyone is there to celebrate. Instead of waiting for the traditional toasts, however, Matteo decides to leave early and, at midnight, jumps off the balcony of his apartment and kills himself.
The family is devastated by the tragedy. No longer motivated, Nicola's mother quits her teaching job and lives a life in solitude in Rome. Nicola, feeling that he could have saved Matteo and not wanting to make the same mistake again, arranges for the capture of Giulia to prevent her from killing someone else or from getting killed. She is sentenced to 17 years in jail. During her jail term, Nicola visits Giulia and proposes to her but is rejected.
=== 1992 spring ===
Nicola finds a photograph of Matteo taken by Mirella. He is encouraged by Giorgia to meet with Mirella which, after some hesitation, he agrees to do. When he meets Mirella, Nicola learns about her son (Andrea) and that Matteo was the father. Nicola breaks this exciting news to his mother and they visit Mirella and the boy on the small island of Stromboli. Inspired by new meaning in her life, Nicola's mother decides to stay with Mirella and her grandson. She will die there, some years later.
Meanwhile, Sara, now in her early twenties, is still struggling with the poor choices her mother has made. She decides to move to Rome to study art conservation and becomes engaged to Mimmo. During this time, Nicola finds out his mother has died and, as a result, travels to Stromboli to visit Mirella and pay his respects.
=== 2000 spring ===
Having finally moved past the death of Matteo, Nicola and Mirella fall in love. Sara, now happy and strong, is encouraged by Nicola to confront her mother and try to patch things up. Giulia, now out of jail and in desperate need of love, embraces Sara, but is not ready to open up completely.
=== 2003 ===
The film ends with Matteo's son, Andrea, visiting Norway, specifically North Cape, which is where his father and Nicola ventured to go at the beginning of the movie, but never completed their journey.

Tags: avant garde, murder, anti war, violence, intrigue, insanity, philosophical, melodrama, romantic

Review:
I can only sum up two points: it is an excellent yet easy-going overview of recent Italian history, and a truly moving, in an unbanal and unstereotypical, unpopcorny way, movie about the value of friendship, closeness, family.
Here is a view of how human beings can live the humanity so desperately needed in this crazed and warring world...also presented as an integral part of plot and interaction...and this done without any sort of didactic or polemic foisting...All achieved through the intimate and profound struggles of the film's characters.Imagination and the incredible sensibility of director (Marco Tullio Giordana),writers (Petraglia and Rulli) and actors (most outstanding: Luigi LoCacio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti and Jasmine Trinca) combine to offer a film that carried this participant (for that's what I felt) into a realm only experienced by exceptional literature.As is obvious...I highly recommend seeing this movie..
Saw the film at this year's Singapore International Film Festival, whose organisers were thankfully intuitive enough to endeavour such challenging programming.Best of youth's sprawling, epic scale depiction of love, familial ties and the strength which friendship binds, were assuredly interspersed into those 6 hours.
There is a reason that this film has been taken from the small screen and released in theaters - I didn't even know it had been a miniseries until I read some of the comments here.The story is simple but it is not trite; we may not have a huge number of surprises and no amazing plot twists and contortions but it is an emotional, moving, satisfying story.The most moving part of the story is the love and connectedness between the characters, and how this is expressed - here in the U.S. physical display of platonic affection is virtually non-existent, unless you count athletes hitting each other on the rear.
"Best of Youth (La Meglio gioventù)" proves that Italians have learned the art of the long-form television mini-series that the British have long mastered.Covering a somewhat same period of the baby boom generation as "In A Land of Plenty," it has more of the generational feel of individuals caught up in history as we have usually seen in British mini-series about end-of-the-eras or World War I, such as "Brideshead Revisited" and "Jewel in the Crown." U.S. mini-series were more successful as sweeping historical epics, even when they were also family sagas like "Roots" and "Centennial;" when the networks tried to interpret more recent history, as in "The Sixties," the set characters sped through "Zelig" and "Forest Gump"-like in happening to be at the right place at the right time; perhaps the several seasons combined of the NBC series "American Dreams" could be considered comparable in showing how the times that are a-changing affect a family."Best of Youth" is being released in the U.S. in movie theaters, though I'm not sure even shown in two parts of three hours each how edited it is from the original format, as other grand European mini-series like "Berlin Alexanderplatz," "Das Boot" and "Fanny and Alexander" were originally only shown in the U.S. in truncated theatrical versions as even PBS seems averse to television with subtitles so we rarely get to see the best of world television.
Comparison to the Italian film "The Leopard" is unfair as that was not created in the same format and covers a shorter period of historical time."Best of Youth" combines charismatic acting, leisurely directing amidst beautiful scenery in several parts of Italy with writing that takes the trajectories of complex yet consistent characters' lives believably and searingly affected by uniquely Italian experiences of the baby boomers' young adult years through middle age, without the American tendency to reject or regret youthful ambitions, through the lens of local natural disasters, violent political activities, judicial battles against the Cosa Nostra, European economic changes, with regional variations, that Americans rarely see in movies.
Similarly, the physical differences between the two actors help to point up the different paths the brothers take through life, even as the casting of other family members to look like them is eerily effective.
The series is particularly good at capturing the camaraderie amongst old male friends over the years and the intimate interactions of members of a family, particularly with children, with a strong theme of the importance of both as an anchor.Unlike in American TV where women are adjuncts as the girlfriend/wife/mother, the key women here are crucial fulcrums in the brothers' lives and have separate intellectual, psychological and emotional demands.
What follows is partly Italian history, but mainly the personal history of the two brothers, growing up and finding their way through life.This is one of the most beautiful, touching and human stories of the latest years.
It is wonderful to see both brothers growing up and changing.The acting is excellent and the story is touching; the director has eye for detail and he manages the capture life in a very unique way.
Most comments consist, indeed, of positive words of praise in favour of this movie: emotionally engaging, never boring, despite the long time-run, authentic, genuine, poetic, finely characterised, wonderfully acted, sober, delicate, sensitive, intelligent, never banal, captivating, enjoyable at every age: simply great.
The Italian import Best of Youth recently entered my all time best ten, a singular honor considering I had to sit still for six hours of viewing, and I rarely sit still anytime, even if my name is DeSando and it's a family saga.Director Francis Ford Coppola created a movie empire with his Godfather series and ended up with what some consider the best American movie ever made.
The two brothers, Nicola and Matteo, represent the Janus-like conflict of liberal and conservative in the volatile last half-century of Italian social and cultural change.This is humanistic history at its best as director Marco Tullio Giordana takes us through the sexy seventies, a devastating Florence flood, the emergence of Red Brigades, assassinations and business downturns including the Fiat layoffs.
But as Roger Ebert says, "I dropped outside of time and was carried along by the narrative flow; when the film was over, I had no particular desire to leave the theater, and would happily have stayed another three hours." Of course, I was watching in the comfort of my home but I agree completely with Mr. Ebert.The narrative covers the years 1966 through 2003 and focuses primarily upon the older brother of a middle class Italian family.
I was left with a good feeling at the end but it arose from having viewed the triumphs and tragedies of a very believable family, a family whose members change and grow as a result of their experience of life just as happens in all families no matter their geographic location.As for geographic location, the viewer of this film is treated to many memorable scenes of Italy from the grit of the city to the blissful pleasures of the islands.
The Best of Youth is a wonderfully scripted, acted, and visually stunning film that will sweep you off your feet and into the lives of an Italian family as they go through the trials and tribulations of life.
The film's main focus is on two brothers, Nicola and Matteo Catiti whose personalities are as different as night and day yet is also immediately apparent that these two love each other very much.
Nicola is the younger, free spirited and philosophical brother while Matteo is more outspoken, with a hot temper and closed personality.What I admired most throughout this film was the use and passage of time.
I think I know what it is: it is all the profound humanity that this film projects, in its pure, real, obtainable form, through its different stories, its passions, its formidable characters - especially the one of Nicola, whom it is so easy to love and identify with.Such a film is a bowl of fresh air, especially for all of us idealists who start to believe the world has turned into a giant cynical machine.
I believe in everybody who loves CINEMA there is a dream, to make a movie in which the story run like the life, in which we could feel like when, children in our bed, waiting to be catch by the sleep, we listen the tales from our parents and everything seems more real than reality.
It is well worth the 6 hours you will spend watching!!!Beautiful footage shot in different parts of Europe superbly compements the time period over which the story takes place (40 years).
But of course, I still realize that the key to great drama is the characters - and they make this epic Italian miniseries-turned-movie work, and work beautifully at that."The Best of Youth" focuses on various members of the Carati family and their friends, advancing from the 1960s to the near-present as it chronicles their lives in the context of social turmoil in Italy as a whole.
In other words, "The Best of Youth" is rich with the kind of warmth, complexity and subtle nuances that you tend to miss in most American dramas - even the ones that win Oscars.I won't spoil the plot, really - I'll just say that both of the main characters, brothers Matteo and Nicola Carati, are charismatic and cool and well worth six hours of screen time.
The story takes place on a period of 37 years, from 1966 to 2003, highlighting some momentous events of our country, which moulded in a way our spirit: the flooding in Florence in 1966, the terrorist fight in the '70s, the World Championship of 1982 (which led to the victory of the Italian team), the killing of Judge Falcone in 1992, and so on.The mixture of intelligent screenplay, wise direction and supreme performance of the whole cast of actors makes this work an authentic miracle of our cinema.
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).
The 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.
And that's the controversial, current history that will never make the books, the 40 years that dramatically changed Italy from the rural, ravaged, divided post war country through the illusory economic boom, the equally delusional insurgent years 1968 to 1977, and the more recent events.Summarizing so much in raises more than one structural problem even for such a long movie: how to confine the action in some post-Aristotelian unit of extended family and friends?
Less effective is Alessio Boni, a TV actor in the admittedly difficult role of the brother Matteo, while Jasmine Trinca (Irene in The Son's Room) is unbelievably good as Giorgia, the mentally disturbed young woman whose sudden appearance in the life of Nicola and Matteo rolls the dice of history and guides each one of them on a different and possibly irreconcilable path.
From the fifties on until today, we follow everything that happens in Italy: communism, anarchy, the Maffia, natural disasters, an economic boom, but also banal things like for instance soccer (in fact everything that has any importance in the history of Italy and the minds of the Italians) is shown in this movie.
You'll see everything evolve through the decades and follow it all through the eyes of the Carati's, a family that isn't spared of any fortune or bad luck...This movie may seem incredibly long to most of you and I'm sure that many people will never watch it, just because of the length.
The film slowly but surely sucks you into the story of the two brothers, Nicola and Matteo, and the sometimes shocking and unexpected events taking place in their lives, against the background of Italy's lively past.Amazing acting.
Most films of this length feel profoundly cumbersome and overdone - after spending most of a day watching this, this engaging film left all of us wanting more.Most films that aspire to capture epic, multi-generational stories have a great deal of difficulty with a cinematic form, but this film makes it seem effortless and natural.The cinematography is understated and stunning, and the performances of the cast is astounding.
I think 'la meglio gioventù' is a very moving movie: Marco Tullio Giordana succeeds in describing minds and psychology not only of the two main characters, Nicola and Matteo Carati, but also of other people living their life around them: Giulia, Nicola's wife who takes part in Brigate Rosse actions, Adriana, Matteo and Nicola's mother, their father...
Yes, it's got subtitles--so if you just want to sit and watch action aplenty and people chasing one another and things exploding, this is not the film.Best of Youth is a beautifully crafted film which follows forty years of a family fortunes and misfortunes, centering mainly on two brothers in Italy, and moves from the noisy bustle of ancient cities to the halcyon sea-kissed Sicily; the film is both romantic and, after the first few hours, intensely suspenseful.
Marco Tullio Giordana lets his characters breathe softly, their inner thoughts often washing across their faces like sunshine coming out from behind a slow moving cloud.Yes, we get some Italian dramatics, such as Rosselini or Visconti offered, but those points take a secondary role to the quieter moments.A hospitalized young girl unable to speak from the fear of electroshock treatments.
Another young girl radically committed to change, helping cleanup the mud in Florence, taking her ideology beyond her family to the Red Brigades.And characters such as Matteo, burdened with himself, unable to express his thoughts, turning from has family's outreached hands.The knit of personal likes and dislikes, music, travel, art woven through in a fabric that says "I am alive and life is beautiful."Take the six hours challenge.
At no point in this beautiful tale was there a moment of boredom or release from the connection.Beginning with two brothers finishing education and going into the real world, experiencing all the pain and separation of life, this film explores the deepest connections we believe in and can fake.The tragedy and the joy are all wonderfully executed and no character is wasted or feels like a filler.A touching insight into the world of any family in any time and any place..
characters: 10/10 acting: 10/10 plot: 7/10 result: 8/10I would recommend this movie to anyone, and in particular people who love drama, just a story of a person.
I can't recommend this movie enough, for its panoramic view of Italian history from the sixties down to the present day, its interesting and sympathetic characters, its ability to integrate important historical events seamlessly into the story, and its ultimately uplifting atmosphere of joie de vivre.
La meglio gioventu (Marco Tullio Giordana) 2003A very interesting movie about the life of an Italian family.
I'm sending the second half back unwatched, because there are too many other movies out there I want to see to muster up the energy or time to watch three more hours of this.I will give "The Best of Youth" the benefit of the doubt that it views better in its original format, as installments on T.V. Maybe the story would seem like it was taking its time a bit more if it were coming at you across a longer period of time, and maybe the static and boring film-making would come across better if you were watching it as a T.V. movie and not as a feature film.
There is absolutely no artistic value to this production, which is the reason why I think it's quite offensive that lots of people rank this just as high- and compare it to other epic Italian classics, by some great film-makers, like Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni or Federico Fellini, among many others.The story made all of the characters quite bland and uninteresting but you could also really blame some of the acting for that.
[ s p o i l e r s ]"La meglio gioventù" ("The Best of Youth") is a six-hour Italian TV miniseries (shown in theaters and at festivals as two three-hour films) that traces the lives of two brothers through the last four decades of Italian history.
This leaves Nicola, the conventional, good, all-suffering man, who thinks all things in life are beautiful but takes a decade or so and three hours of screen time to realize he's in love with Matteo's girlfriend, the earthy photographer, Mirella, whose son by then is about eighteen.
He discovers a giant portrait of Matteo in an exhibition of her photographs (and others'), which is rather well done.It's always fun to watch people develop in detail and in more scenes than an ordinary film allows and "La meglio gioventù" gives this satisfaction, showing us lives changing over time, arousing almost Proustian feelings at moments.
It's still good, but you feel like the better years have passed.This isn't the grand story of life, but it is the story of some people in Italy, and it's not the definitive story but it's definitely worth your time, if you be interested in the subject matter..
each character come with such a detail & depth, you will feel like they are your real family at the end of the film.
While watching this movie you realize that there are three families that are involved in pretty much every important event in contemporary Italian history.