The Big Dream

It is difficult to make a movie on Italy's 1968, because so much has been said and filmed, and, although being still a fashionable subject, it risks getting much political interference, and being easily misunderstood, mainly in today's Italy. On the contrary, in this movie the director Michele Placido chose to reinterpret this historical period, appealing to his personal life, when he came from the South, as a son of the working class, to work as a policeman, but always cultivating the dream to become an actor. And the result is a mix between a social, historical movie, with pieces of documentaries from Vietnam, Martin Luther king, Che Guevara, Nixon, and a biographical recollecting of an intense period of the director's life, when he, a simple proletarian, became involved in the riots of the bourgeois university students, who wanted to subvert all the taboos and long-established values, in favour of a more just and free world.

The greatest merit is that of presenting that period with all its contradictions and disillusions, as if the consciousness were always alive of the big chill that would replace the big dream of those enthusiastic days, since in the end many of those young revolutionary would convert to the extremist ideas of the terrible years when terrorism was at its height. The overall tone is of nostalgia (and an emotionally involving soundtrack contributes to it), together with some sense of disillusionment, as if nothing really changed so much, and the great ideals were easily abandoned in favour of something less idealistic. The actors are those of the moment: Luca Argentero, who, although made famous by the Big Brother, proves to be always fit for his role, Riccardo Scamarcio, who is still a long way from being a true actor, but here gives a convincing performance, and Jasmine Trinca who interprets with passion and truthfulness the role of the woman of those days.