The Best of Youth
2003 · Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana
Original language: Italian
- drama
- history
- romance
The story
After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.
What it’s like
Warm, unhurried naturalism: sunlit Roman apartments, dusty summer streets, and the soft grain of decades passing, with the palette shifting from bright 1960s color to muted, cooler tones in later years. The camera tends to settle into long, observant takes of family meals, car rides and quiet conversations, and the Florentine flood and Sicilian landscapes arrive as large, physical images. The score is melodic and sweeping but restrained, with pianos and strings that rise and then fall away, leaving room for ambient city noise and silence. Across more than six hours, the pace is leisurely, with the feeling of a family album being turned one page at a time. Tone is melancholic and humane, with big historical currents running under intimate, everyday grief and affection. Violence is real but sporadic: a few sudden, shocking moments tied to political and criminal events, plus an illness and a death handled with restraint, and brief sexual content. It suits a long, rainy weekend or a slow, committed binge, for viewers who love multigenerational family stories, Italian social drama, and a relationship with a film that unfolds over years.
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