The Best of Youth (2003)
"La meglio gioventù" (original title)

An Italian epic that follows the lives of two brothers, from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Director:

Marco Tullio Giordana

Writers:

Sandro Petraglia, Stefano Rulli

Stars:

Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti

24 wins & 17 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Luigi Lo Cascio	...	Nicola Carati
Alessio Boni	...	Matteo Carati
Adriana Asti	...	Adriana Carati
Sonia Bergamasco	...	Giulia Monfalco
Fabrizio Gifuni	...	Carlo Tommasi
Maya Sansa	...	Mirella Utano
Valentina Carnelutti	...	Francesca Carati
Jasmine Trinca	...	Giorgia
Andrea Tidona	...	Angelo Carati
Lidia Vitale	...	Giovanna Carati
Claudio Gioè	...	Vitale Micavi
Paolo Bonanni	...	Luigino
Mario Schiano	...	Medicine Professor
Giovanni Scifoni	...	Berto
Michele Melega	...	Literature Professor

Storyline

Nicola and Matteo Carati are two brothers of Rome, who live the years from 1966 to 2000 and all the events which have signed this period. They begin their adventure, helping Giorgia, a young girl confined in an asylum. Then, after the flood of Florence, Nicola meets Giulia a talented piano player with a dangerous sympathy for the BR. Matteo, a rebel spirit entered in the police, will find the optimistic photographer Mirella. These four characters and many others will cross the years of terrorism and Tangentopoli.

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Plot Keywords:

police | photographer | 1960s | epic | 2000s | 

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Taglines:

The possibilities were endless...

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and brief nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

22 June 2003 (Italy)

Also Known As:

The Best of Youth

Filming Locations:

Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$7,490 (USA) (4 March 2005)

Gross:

$254,224 (USA) (1 July 2005)

Company Credits

Production Co:

BiBi Film, Rai Cinemafiction

Technical Specs

Runtime:

180 min 366 min 383 min 358 min 366 min (theatrical) 383 min (2 parts)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Originally developed as a miniseries for television. It was then released in cinemas in June 2003 as two three-hour films after the uncut six-hour version had been screened to great acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. Because of the films's success, it was eventually shown on Italian TV as originally intended, in 4 parts, in November 2003.

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Goofs

Right at the start, after a caption has shown that the film is set in 1966 at the beginning and the main characters are getting into a car, a radio is heard playing the song "Might just take your life" by Deep Purple. This song was released in 1974.

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Quotes

Sara Carati, adult: What should I do?
Nicola Carati: I don't know, it depends on how strong you feel... Are you happy now?
Sara Carati, adult: Of course I am!
Nicola Carati: Then, it's time to be generous

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Connections

References Modern Times (1936)

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Soundtracks

"Piano sonata in A minor K 310"
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performed by Sonia Bergamasco

User Reviews

The history is within

In "La miglior Gioventu'" Marco Tullio Giordana attempts something quite ambitious: a "Novecento part 3" covering nearly 40 years of Italian history from 1966 to the present day. 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? Giordana chooses an "intimate" perspective, starting the story from quite an unexpected angle of ordinary bourgeoisie and mental illness, and using it later as the key to his whole work.

Like in the "Hundred Steps" the first shots are of hope, with a great imitation of the Technicolor years and the skies of Rome with the "House of the Rising Sun" in the background. The unique events of one summer, 1966, bring two brothers and their friends inevitably and forever apart, each one of them stealing away a piece of the collective soul of that Italy that is about to change.

But in the Hundred Steps, Luigi Lo Cascio dies as Peppino Impastato, a martyr of the open rebellion to the "muro di gomma" of the invisible mafia control outside of Palermo. How vain is that sacrifice appears clearer in the first part of the Best of Youth, where Nicola gradually diverges from her partner Giulia, soon to disappear in the clandestine world of terrorist subversions of the "lead years." About that he writes of the idea of transforming the institutions from within. A necessary, painful transformation that often sees the brothers on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and the law.

LoCascio is excellent, as usual, a young De Niro with extra depth. 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. Trinca as Giorgia plays with silences and the averted gaze, a mute witness to the interior tragedy of Matteo: in an unforgettable scene matteo talks by himself about Giorgia's absence and inability to communicate, and we all realize he is really talking about himself, "matto" Matteo as she reveals with her first words after the long silence of forced confinement.