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THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO) Send This Review to a Friend
One of the best films to come out of Italy recently, "The Last Kiss," showcased prior to commercial release as part of the "Open Roads: New Italian Cinema" series (May 31-June 12, 2002) by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the Walter Reade Theater, dynamically explores contemporary lives of the young and the more mature chasing after what they think is happiness. The goals are elusive, which provides the drama, but equally important is the intense, staccato style of writer-director Gabriele Muccino.
Accented by the underlining of rumbling music, the film is rapidly paced, with cuts back and forth between the various stories, and this charges the drama with great energy. We meet young Italian men who worry that lapsing into romantic commitment will ruin their lives and think they can only have a bright future if they remain free to do as they please. Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) has a loving mate Giulia (Giovanna Mezzagiorno), with whom he lives. She's pregnant and he's restless. Anxiety also grips his friend Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti), already a father and resentful of his status and his bickering marriage to Livia (Sabrina Impacciatore).
One particularly sad note is Carlo's attraction to the fawning young Francesca (Martina Stella). He's merely having a fling. She thinks he's the love of her life. It is a prescription for disaster, particularly if Giulia finds out, for she's the type who would find their relationship forever changed by his betrayal.
It isn't only the young who are on a treadmill. Giulia's mother Anna feelingly portrayed by Stefania Sandrelli, is in the throes of despair, believing that her marriage to her psychiatrist husband is dead. She tries to escape, but after so many years, she really has nowhere to go, and one attempt to find a new future by tracking down a former lover is pitifully desperate. All of the characters examined are placed in the context of their daily lives and ties, adding further to the convincing atmosphere.
"The Last Kiss" is a wise and knowing film that in some respects is reminiscent of Federico Fellini's "I Vitelloni," about loafing youths who want to break free of their environment, and "La Dolce Vita," which also depicted a malaise involving people chasing after elusive excitement. Muccino achieves a style of his own and the superb actors and actresses display a contemporary freshness. The result is a powerful, absorbing and provocative film that in the spirit of the series showcasing it suggests new vibrancy in Italian filmmaking. A THINKfilm release.
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