A happy accident/confrontation some years ago with a somewhat naïve intern led me to realise I no longer needed to sit through 4 press screenings a day for the New York Film Festival and have a happy life. My disillusionment occurred a way before that! I enjoyed seeing most (particularly the orphans no one else but me and a doormouse seemed interested in). Nowadays those days weren't that long ago..) most can be seen elsewhere even better at MoMA screenings (eventually) perhaps bejesus online! All the press conferences are online also. Watch at one’s leisure, not fatigue and ordeal. All those years of writing about films and you could count in the fingers of a dismembered hand how many PR's cared about a review even a few weeks after release date. (I totally understand: that's the job description- the U.S.of A. is even less interested in yesterday). The effects of that are very apparent. And we are not talking movies.
All this why?: Finally I caught up with last year’s Paolo Sorrentino film Youth. It had rather unanimously luke warm reviews, even from those critics who I would maybe even walk for at least ‘half a plank’. I was the opposite of many of those same critics who, I would say, over-praised Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty. Youth is the same film (as all Sorrentino films are;) only even better. I would go even further to say it is one of the most exquisite movies I have ever seen. The film’s dedicatee the great great director Francesco Rosi could not be more honored.
The casting and performances are all flawless. The cinematography (The Great Beauty), needless to say. The music- David Lang! The criticism that was leveled at Youth was what was praised in The Great Beauty. Only: you have in Youth one of Sir Michael Caine’s best performances (and that is saying something). Jane Fonda does not just make a cameo ever. Harvey Keitel was always a great actor. Now we see him in full glory just waiting for the a**holes to leave or die:). Rachel Weisz’s monologue is so fff’ing true as is everything else in this movie. But as with all truth, like Venice, you turn the diamond. It is still a diamond but a somewhat different vision and truth reveals.
Sorrentino’s movies have always been operas (I can’t remember/have time to Google what I wrote about that years ago-the dinosaur just was distracted by the very charismatic David Attenborough and found time;). (...there are some awesome humans in that post..I hope the ghost-dinosuar did good..:) GNough! Suffice!
Whereg were we. Yes, Sorrentino: extraordinary visions populated by people who by birth/talent/accident became extraordinary players on a vast canvas. YOUTH
no-one in the whole world feels up to it…
no-one in the whole world feels up to it…
