User Score
3 votes
The Resistance, an ancient theme. Almost always approached from a realistic, if not documentary, perspective. Yet memory reworks in a fantastic, sometimes sinister, way all kinds of memories, even dramas. It is from this point of view that first-time director Daniele Gaglianone (34) approached the subject, despite his deep historical knowledge of the period (he has been working with the National Archive of the Resistance for years). In an interior, rather than intimate key: two old men meet by chance the fascist hierarch responsible for a terrible massacre, and they do not know whether to forgive or avenge. The past then mixes with the present, up to a third dimension that becomes a real character, in the finale: the decision made by the two will turn out to be unsuccessful and then, in order not to "die," the old men will build a perverse inner game capable of remedying every pain...
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
IT
The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)
