More about "The Best of Youth"

I have first seen reviews of this movie in a local magazine. Milk, or perhaps it was East Touch. It looked promising. I couldn't find any good movies in Hong Kong lately, so I decided I would give it a try. I spent the whole afternoon on this movie, skipping the usual saturday boardgame gathering and one of my best friend's birthday dinner party.

It was really a nice movie. I didn't feel it at first. It did not make me weep. There were no violent or erotic scenes, or dramatic events, or any things that charms me. Nothing special that I could remember from the music. I could not even understand Italian, nor have I a passion on Italian history. But I just could not get it out of my head. Four days later I am still thinking about it. It was just that good. So I decided I would write a short review, or my feelings, about this six-hour monster, even though I was never good at writing.

It was about this Roman middle class family of Carati: Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), his brother Matteo (Alessio Boni), their family and their friends, with forty years of Italian history weaved into their lives. Just before a trip to northen europe after exam, Matteo met this little girl Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca) in an asylum. Trying to protect this girl from being mistreated, he rescued her. With the help of his smarter brother Nicola they tried helping her to find her father, but the father already had a new life and did not want the mentally-ill daughter any more. This girl changed their lives. Matteo wanted power to correct the world. He dropped out of school and joined the armed forces and later became Riot Police. The more liberal Nicola wanted to heal the girl and continued his education in Psychiatry after the long trip. They crossed each other's lives at unexpected moments, sometimes in opposing identities. Nicola, as a volunteer to help in the Florence flood, saw his brother on the street, a soldier. Demonstrator's close friend and riot police who almost killed one of the demonstrators in Torino....

The movie turned out to be very touching. It was 40 years of life condensed in a 6 hour show. New lives arrive while family members passed away. Different sorts of family problems. Different attitudes leading into different ways of life, causing family members to stand of opposing sides in an argument.

There was also a little something that took me a few days to realise. Still photo cameras, not the brothers, were the key to the movie. I was really surprised how the story linked different characters together through photographs. It was Matteo's photos that started it all, that showed Nicola to Giorgia and changed their lives forever. It was Mirellas' camera who helped her and Matteo met. Photos from the very same female led the brother to the widow, the grandchild to the Oma. It took me a few days to realize that these photographs played such an important role in the movie. I was so dumb.

Impressions on The Best of Youth: 9/10