"Youth" (La Giovinezza)
Title: Youth (La
Directo
Writer: Paolo Sorrentino
Category: Drama
Duration: 169 min
Rate:
I have an unstable relationship with Sorrentino's movies. I either love them or hate them. As it happens with Woody Allen's works, I usually enjoy watching them every two years, and since I was amazed by This Must Be the Place and I absolutely loathed The Great Beauty (even though I can recognize that he did an amazing job in glorifying Rome as the eternal city), I already knew that I was going to at least enjoy Youth, since the trailer of the movie intrigued me and the cast was stellar.
Youth follows the story of two old friends spending their time in a health resort in Swizerland. While Harvey Keitel's character Mick is working on his testament movie with a group of young writers, his long time friend, and protagonist of the story, Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is enjoying his retirement from his role as composer and orchestra leader. However, while Mick is struggling to find the perfect ending for his screenplay, Fred is always receiving calls and visitors asking him for a final biography or a final concert for the Queen of England.
The movie is a classic Sorrentino's one. The pace is slow, contemplative and with attention to every detail. The music is poignant and it harmonizes elegantly with the scenes. However, its particularity is that it works on binary oppositions. There is an eternal comparison between Youth and Old age throughout the movie. The title is ironic enough, since Youth is a strong analysis on how life and the past changes when a person gets old and cannot look at the future anymore. In the movie the characters are instead trying to remember their memories, finding them fading away quickly, and realizing that while they were living through their experiences, they did not stop to savor, appreciate and learn from them.
Throughout the movie the contrast between old and young is ever present, each scene is masterfully used to make us see them as each the antithesis of the other.
All the main actors outdid themselves with their performances. Rachel Weisz's enraged monologue was powerful and touching and it is complementary to Michael Caine's one regarding how young people and old one remember their past.
The location was breathtaking and it felt like a huge part of the movie itself. I particularly loved Sorrentino's desire to make the audience stop and notice every small aspect of a scene. Particularly beautiful and meaningful were the scenes in which Fred is directing nature's organic and spontaneous music as if it was his orchestra while sitting by himself.
The end leaves you with a bittersweet taste in your mouth, as it happened for me with This Must Be The Place.
To me, what Sorrentino is stating, through Mick and Fred, is how it is important to really live and make the most of life while we are young without running towards the future, focusing only on the finish line instead of on the journey that leads you there, because when we get older the only thing that we have left is the past, and if we did not savor every moment and pay attention to what really is important, in the end, even the memories will fade away.
All in all Youth is a good movie. It can be considered as heavy and reflecting, therefore not everyone will find it enjoyable. However, it can also be considered as a work of art that, in telling you the story of the passing of time, it physically stops it.
Till next time,
Fred
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