L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014 www.italoamericano.com 10 A wealth of emerging Italian talents at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival FrANCESCA VALENTE Italian cinema continues to be one of the dominant voices in the world. The selection of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival provides a glimpse of the incredible diversity of Italian cinema ranging from audience- driven genre films to powerful documentaries. This year's program stands out as proof that contemporary Italian cinema is, more than ever, a genuine melting pot open to the world with an amazing capacity to combine cultural and multi- ethnic influences. It reminds us that Italy is still a vibrant creative hub for both independent and mainstream cin- ema on the world stage. Several films especially appreciated by the audience and worth seeing are: Hungry Hearts by Saverio Costanzo and Leopardi, Il Giovane Favoloso by Mario Martone. HUNGRY HEARTS is a small budget movie set in New York and starring Adam Driver as Jude and Alba Rohrwacher as Mina, both awarded the Volpi Cup as best actor and best actress a few days ago in Venice. Jude and Mina fall in love, get mar- ried and have a child, whom Mina wants to protect from the outside world and its contamina- tion. She hides the baby from the world and through a peculiar nutritional program puts his life in danger. The film, according to the director, Saverio Costanzo — director also of the critically acclaimed The Solitude of Prime Numbers — intends to show the dramatic transition from being a couple to becoming parents, with the emotional trauma and responsibility it involves. Costanzo's brilliant screenplay is based on the novel Il bambino Indigo (Indigo Child) by Venetian Marco Franzoso. The film Hungry Hearts becomes increasingly gothic in tone and feel as the eerie logic of its plot unfolds within the con- fines of the New York apartment where the couple lives. Distorted wide-angles mingle with omi- nous overhead shots as the drama unfolds because the director uses his camera on his shoulder so as to, he says, maintain a symbiotic relationship with his characters. The child's life is thus held in a precarious balance until the rela- tionship between the overprotec- tive mother and the more rational father snaps and the domestic tragedy relentlessly explodes. International Premiere 109 minutes/colour English. Screenplay: Saverio Costanzo; music: Nicola Piovani; principal cast: Adam Driver, Alba Rohrwacher; production: Wildside, Rome LEOPARDI, Il giovane favoloso Directed by Mario Martone Equally compelling and rivet- ing is the story of Leopardi, a major Italian poet, essayist, philosopher and philologist of the nineteenth century, as recounted in a memorable film by director Mario Martone. The interest in Giacomo Leopardi, the Dante of modern times, was first shown by Martone in a theatrical piece, when he decided a few years ago to stage his Operette Morali with great success in Turin, where he is presently the artistic director of Teatro Stabile. The love for Leopardi and his rich language deepened to the point that it developed into a film that explores in a broad fresco his entire brief life. The film starts in his birthplace, Recanati, a small town in what was then the Papal States, where he precociously became one of Italy's finest lyric poets. Like Mozart with his father Leopold, Giacomo Leopardi was a child prodigy and grew under the cultural tutelage of his father, Count Monaldo. His immense library provided him all there was to learn. Giacomo soon became an encyclopedic talent, devouring languages both ancient and modern. Gradually, however, he felt as though he were in a sort of prison, and he yearned to escape. From the window of his aristocratic house he constantly observed the daily life of the town. Through poetry, young Leopardi, superbly acted by Elio Germano, undertook an internal liberating journey that would lead him to more clearly define his way of thinking: in the land of the Pope, at a time in which Catholicism reigned unchal- lenged (his mother was a fanati- cally devout Catholic), Leopardi's worldview became increasingly secular and lucid, thanks to an inspiring correspon- dence with Pietro Giordani, an intellectual who recognized the genius of Leopardi, even though still an adolescent. This grant- ed Leopardi a deep ability to dis- cern the hypocrisies of the soci- ety in which he was living. He secretly became a rebel and a free thinker as he felt that the world outside was radically changing. The French revolution and the age of the Enlightenment were leading a new way. After a failed attempt to flee, discovered by Count Monaldo, the walls of his painted cage within Recanati relentlessly closed in on him in. Only ten years later he managed to leave his home town for good and live for some time in Rome, Florence, Pisa and finally in Naples.The visionary poet soon discovered he was ill- suited to the hypocrisy of the lit- erary salons and rejected every offer of work that might have limited his freedom of thought. He loved many women, without success. He ended up living with Antonio Ranieri, a young Neapolitan revolutionary on the run, who was aware of his talent and never left him. Along with his sister, the young man con- stantly and lovingly provided devoted assistance, taking down on paper the poems Giacomo dictated, once he had become almost blind. Their friendship was destined to last his lifetime. The poet's relationship with the intellectual society of his time in Italy worsened from year to year and Leopardi became increasingly marginalized and misunderstood, like Pier Paolo Pasolini a century later. The isolation of the artist became the necessary existen- tial condition, a source of cre- ativity both at a receptive and expressive level. Martone skilfully shows, as director, how the poet's mind became gradually more free and lucid, once he abandoned any aspiration to be recognized by his contemporaries, while his body was rapidly and relentless- ly deteriorating before his eyes. His encounter with Naples gave him a new intellectual levity and human dimension. He lived with Ranieri in poor working-class quarters of the city, where he constantly came across homeless people, thieves and prostitutes. Yet, Leopardi loved Naples and its unique nature. Here he came to prefer the company of simple people he encountered in the local taverns to that of the lumi- naries of the Neapolitan intellec- tual society, always ready to judge and censor his books. He concluded his brief life in 1837, at the age of 38, in a house on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius looming over the villa with its burning lava and black smoke eerily enveloping everything. Here he composed La ginestra (The Broom) which, along with his last lyric poem, The Waning of the Moon, is considered his poetical testament and encom- passes his philosophy, as well as his human experience. His final message is that only the drive and the power of the artist's inner vision and illusions can make his painful life worth liv- ing. It is like the perfume of the broom which rises to the sky and brings consolation to the barren desert surrounding it at the foot of the mythical Neapolitan vol- cano. Mario Martone has ventured both into the exterior and interior world of Leopardi. After Noi credevamo, a film on Italian Risorgimento, Martone wanted to persevere in his attempt to bring to light parts of the Italian literary and political past that are valuable to better understand our complex present, but this time not with an historical film. Leopardi, il giovane favoloso aims to tell the story of a soul, capturing the most significant moments of his short life, from his all-encompassing, encyclope- Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver, both winners of the Volpi Cup, as best actress and actor, Venice 2014 Continued on page 11

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