The Most Beautiful Years (Gli Anni Più Belli) by Gabriele Muccino: a film that deserves a pleasant round of applause

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Gloria Bressan

7/5/2021 15:02

Muccino is back. With a film whose style is recognizable as a trademark of the Italian director. As in "The Last Kiss" and then "Kiss me again", the plot is the common Italian life, made up of couple problems, friendship, betrayals that have developed over the course of 40 years. Muccino, in terms of transcription of reality, is a master: he does not invent anything but sets what are the spectator's memories in a time left in the past and in the present of each of us. To help the director there are 3 big pieces of the Italian cinema scene that mean "success and skill" with the only stage presence. Francesco Favino, Kim Rossi Stuart and Claudio Santamaria are directed together with the female presence of Micaela Ramazzotti, in an enjoyable film that was nominated for both the Silver Ribbon and the David di Donatello.

The transposition takes up a very dear vein of Italian cinema, that of the family story of "There were so many loved ones" by Ettore Scola, exposing to the public's memories an Italian spirit that is humanly moving in its strengths and flaws. In an interview published in an online newspaper, Muccino declares "I am inspired by that cinema to understand who we are, where we come from and why we are what we are today. And from We loved each other so much I put two quotes, for which I asked the producer to buy the rights, to feel more free to do them. But they are not plagiarism, they are heartfelt tributes. It is the greatest film I have ever made because the characters are the micro-history in the frame of the great history, of a changing Italy but it is not a nostalgic or pessimistic journey because all the characters, with their difficulties, are driven by the idea. that tomorrow will be a better day ”.

It was 1982: through the story of three friends - who were teenagers at the time - a story of love and desire develops for a girl who joined the group who is the pivot of their sentimental stories. The growth of the protagonists develops between betrayals, disappointments, work successes and ambitions in the shadow of events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, Clean Hands and the establishment of new political parties up to our pre-pandemic days. What remains for the three friends is always the search for "what makes us feel good" but only with the events that have occurred to their friendship and personal compromises, will they have the intuition and the matured awareness of the meaning of this banal phrase pitted as a good luck toast.

It is certainly an author's production both for the performers (I also quote Emma Marrone in a different role from her usual artistic path) and for the soundtrack of a master like Nicola Piovani. Next to him there is also one of the singers who have marked the Italian music of the last 40 years with hits such as "And you how are you?" or "A thousand days of you and me": Claudio Baglioni accompanies the most incisive moments of the three protagonists with "The most beautiful years" giving even more pathos to the film's plot.

I leave you to the vision of the film of which, I am sure, you will love the final scene: a sort of brilliant generational visual collage, extremely exciting and excellently constructed that contains the summary of all the meaning of the film itself: enjoy!