Best of Youth, The

aka: La Meglio gioventù
Italy 2003, 368 minutes
Dir. Marco Tullio Giordana
In Italian, French with English subtitles
Rating: [M]
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Drama / History, Youth

Topics: Politics.

Aroview: Sprawling and heady Italian saga tracks the lives of two brothers through the idealistic dreams of the 1960s and the long messy aftermath of subsequent decades - effortlessly revealing the interwoven nature of personal, family, social and political dramas.

The brothers take divergent paths - one a politically-active psychiatrist, the other an army-trained policeman - but are indirectly drawn together by twists of fate and external events involving terrorism, natural disasters, World Cup soccer and more. Originally created as a TV mini-series, it subsequently became a massive box-office hit in Italy, and despite the perils of its running time, is ably crafted with due proportion given to its weighty themes and characters in a manner which has been compared with THE GODFATHER trilogy. Winner of an 'Un Certain Regard' award at Cannes 2003.

NZ International Film Festival 2004