The Best Of Youth (La meglio gioventù)

dir. Marco Tullio Giordana
Italy, 2003

In an Italian film tradition that includes Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard (and not Cold Mountain, as the ill-conceived DVD blurb suggests), this is a wonderfully sweeping, soap-operatic account of two brothers and their family stretching from 1966 to 2003.

I remember the trailers for this showing at the Watershed in Bristol. It was released in two parts (and appears as such on the DVD) of about 3 hours each. It is pretty epic. It was originally a TV mini-series in Italy shown in 4 parts. It's made by some of the people that made last year's surprise My Brother Is An Only Child and features the same natural, engaging acting and moving family dynamics, particularly in its presentation of the deep bonds and differences between two brothers.

I fear some might call it a technically conservative film because its strengths lie in classic storytelling. Whilst across the spectrum of narrative devices it may well turn out to be that, I don't think that is inherently bad. In fact the word conservative is best avoided as it has too many unwanted and unpleasant connotations. The storytelling really is, like My Brother, effortless. I am not alone in wanting to repeat the experience of watching it. Gorging ourselves on it over three nights, the only complaint was that it was too short. It draws you in, makes you care about the family, and doesn't let go.

I'm sure it will feature in my end of year "Best Of" post.