The Best of Youth (La Meglio Gioventu)

Originally made for Italian tv, this six-hour family saga had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. last year, so it certainly ranks in my book as the Best Film of 2005. A leisurely unfolding of complicated familial dynamics against the news of the last forty years in Italy, the film focuses on two brothers (though the two sisters are also given their due, as is everyone who is swept up into the broad canvas) coming of age in the Sixties and pursuing divergent (and yet ultimately convergent) paths through the succeeding decades. Luckily that takes them from Rome to Turin to Florence to Palermo and points along the way, so the film works as a beautiful travelogue as well as a primer on recent Italian history. But it is even better as character study charted against time and the times, with novelistic breadth and depth, flawlessly acted by a large cast. Marco Tullio Giordano admirably follows in the tradition of directors like Visconti, Rosi, or Olmi. There’s no way to encapsulate the story, you have to immerse yourself in it, which I advise you to do. If you can’t lay your hands on the dvd, I hope to be able to offer a special event screening at the Clark this September. (2003, dvd, n.) *9-* (MC-89, RT-95.)