The best of years (2003)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The best years |
| Original title | La meglio gioventù |
| Country of production | Italy |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 366 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Marco Tullio Giordana |
| script | Sandro Petraglia , Stefano Rulli |
| production |
Angelo Barbagallo Donatella Botti |
| camera | Roberto Forza |
| cut | Roberto Missiroli |
| occupation | |
| |
The best years is the eighth feature film by Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana . The film tells the life story of the Roman Carati family between 1966 and 2000. Similar to the German director Edgar Reitz in Heimat , Giordana succeeds in telling a chronicle of Italy by describing seemingly everyday life stories: the change of the country away from a largely rural one shaped society, the economic boom of the 1960s and its decline, the years of terrorism and Tangentopoli to current developments.
The film was originally conceived as a television series, but was eventually shown in international cinemas in a six-hour version.
At the Cannes Film Festival in 2003 Giordana was awarded the Un Certain Regard section . At the presentation of the European Film Prize 2003 and the French César Film Prize , Giordana was nominated for best director and the film itself was nominated in the category of Best European Film .
Detailed plot of the film
The film begins in Rome in 1966 . The two brothers Matteo and Nicola Carati are just about to finish their intermediate exams in literature and medicine at the university. Matteo works in a psychiatric clinic in his free time , where he meets the young patient Giorgia. When he learns that she is being treated with electric batons there , he decides to rescue her from this clinic. His brother accompanies him instead of going to Norway with his two friends Carlo and Berto .
First they go with Giorgia to their home village in the Apennines , where they learn that their father now lives in Ravenna . Once there, however, they have to find out that the father now has a new family and wants Giorgia to go back to the clinic. After a brief argument, the two brothers want to flee on with Giorgia. In Porto Marghera they meet their older sister Giovanna, who works as a judge there. She advises them to take Giorgia to another clinic in Gorizia . Shortly afterwards, however, Giorgia is arrested by the police in a bar, but the two brothers are not betrayed by her. However, they parted ways at the Porto Marghera train station: Matteo decides to drop out of university and join the military. However, his brother sets out on his own for Norway , where he meets hippies and opponents of the Vietnam War and decides to become a psychiatrist in order to be able to help people like Giorgia.
In the flood disaster in Florence , the two brothers meet again when they help with the cleanup. It was here that Nicola met the young math student Giulia and decided to move with her to Turin , where they both played an important role during the student protests in 1968. Six years later, in 1974, Nicola and Matteo, who is now a police officer, meet again: on the edge of the riots over the occupied University of Turin, Nicola learns that Giulia is pregnant; Matteo's best friend Luigi is so injured in the riots that he remains paralyzed. As was to be expected, there is a dispute between Matteo and Giulia, who is now firmly anchored in the left scene. In the same year Nicolas and Giulia's daughter Sara are born.
Nicola fights together with the inmates of a psychiatric clinic in court against the inhuman conditions in the “madhouses” and can achieve that these are controlled much better by the state in the future. In one of the controlled institutions he finds Giorgia, who is completely frightened by years of deprivation; only slowly does he manage to regain her confidence. On the other hand, he is becoming increasingly estranged from Giulia, who has since joined the Brigate Rosse ; he looks after their daughter almost alone. Matteo has had himself transferred to Palermo , but finds it difficult to cope with the Sicilian mentality and actively looking away at atrocities by the Mafia . However, here he briefly makes the acquaintance of Mirella, a young photographer who is looking for a job in a library : he recommends her favorite library in Rome. When he visited his brother and Giorgia in Turin in 1977, he did not take the opportunity to visit his parents. In Turin, however, the two brothers learn that their father has since died of cancer. The whole family meets in the parents' apartment: On the sidelines of the funeral service, however, Giulia decides to leave her husband and daughter behind so that she can devote herself fully to the work of the Red Brigades. Nicola surprises her shortly before she leaves the apartment, but lets her go because he has no idea what her goal is really. At the funeral service, however, the first tender bonds develop between Carlo, his best friend, who now holds an important position at the Banca d'Italia , and his little sister Francesca. The two married in 1980 and their first child was born in the same year, followed by three more.
Matteo, who was working in Rome again in the early 1980s, met Mirella again, who now actually works in the library he recommended to her. The two fall in love, but Matteo doesn't dare to confess his real name, his real job and his love to her. On the sidelines of the New Year's Eve celebration in 1983, when the entire family has gathered again, he retreats to his own small apartment after an argument with Mirella, who has since discovered his true identity. There he committed suicide by jumping over the balcony railing. Nicola reproaches himself because, like Giulia seven years earlier, he could have stopped him shortly before leaving his parents' apartment.
Giulia herself is still a member of the Brigate Rosse . However, she begins to doubt her existence as a terrorist when she learns who her next target should be: Carlo, the husband of her sister-in-law, for whom she is still very fond despite her estrangement from her family. She therefore warns Francesca; At the same time, however, asks her to give her a chance to contact Sara. Francesca initially keeps this to herself, but eventually confides in Nicola. This causes Giulia to be arrested at this meeting: he would rather that she is safe in prison than that she should die in one of the next attacks.
At the beginning of the 1990s Giulia is still in a maximum security prison and refuses to contact Nicola; her 18-year-old daughter, on the other hand, rejects her mother, accusing her of abandoning her and her father. Nicola is still in good contact with Giorgia, who is making further progress. One day he sees the poster for a photo exhibition and is surprised that it is a portrait of his deceased brother. He finds out the name of the photographer - it's Mirella, who now lives on her home island Stromboli again . And she has a son, seven-year-old Andrea - who is also Matteo's son. Nicolas mother is overjoyed to have found a memento of her other son and decides to spend her retirement years on Stromboli with her newly found "daughter-in-law" and her grandson. She died there in 1994.
In 2000 the family got together again for a happy occasion. Nicolas daughter Sara has decided to marry her longtime boyfriend. However, the family no longer meets in the dark apartment in Rome, but in the spacious estate in Tuscany , where Carlo and Francesca and their sons now live. And this is where Andrea and his mother Mirella arrive. Giulia, on the other hand, has since been released from prison and works in a library in Florence. Sara finally reconciles with her on the occasion of the wedding and spends a few days with her in the city where her parents met almost 35 years ago. Nicola has finally learned that he no longer has to feel attached to Giulia and falls in love with his nephew's mother, Mirella. The film ends in 2003 when Andrea and his girlfriend are traveling through Norway on the same routes that his uncle and stepfather traveled in 1966.
Reviews
One of the greatest melodramas in recent years , Liberation
It is a gigantic throw that Giordana [...] put here. [...] At the same time, completely undogmatic [...], extremely entertaining, exciting and closely told. , The world
It's easy to say that you didn't just see a film in the cinema, you had an experience. This time it's true. , FAZ
The unbearable lightness of being in the first part weakens a sentimental compulsion to a happy ending in the second. The film definitely leaves a strong, almost deafening impression. , playerweb.de
Prices
- Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival
- David di Donatello for best Italian film (2004)
- 2004 Globo d'Oro for Best Director .
Web links
- The best years in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eberhard von Elterlein: Great litter: "The best years" of Italy. In: welt.de . March 2, 2005, accessed October 7, 2018 .
- ↑ The things of life and - ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
