It is about life, not death. And beautiful it is.
Youth
Grade: A
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Screenplay: Sorrentino
Cast: Michael Caine (Alfie), Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs)
Rating: R
Runtime: 118 min.
by John DeSando
“You say that emotions are overrated. But that's bullshit. Emotions are all we've got.” Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel)
Anticipating writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, I expected another disappointment as I had seeing Ken Kwapis’s A Walk in the Woods with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte: a couple of old duffers exchanging brief witticisms about aging, but not much else. However, with Youth, I watched a cinematic painter reveal the complex reactions of aging artists to the joys and challenges of life lived fully but alas terminally.
Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and Mick Boyle, the former a retired composer/conductor and the latter a still practicing cinema director, reminisce about the girls they did or didn’t bed (tough sometimes to remember which) and the challenges of continuing to create or just keep up with the emotional demands of being a father and husband. In that sense, they are not just aging men but living human beings still figuring out what it is all about.
This astonishing film is next to The Assassin the most beautifully photographed film of 2015. The high-class spa where the protagonists are vacationing is nestled in the Swiss Alps with backdrops so arrestingly beautiful you’d think it were all special effects. But because I spent some time hiking the Grunewald region, I can verify that no CGI is needed to lens the beauty of the region.
The individual shots are composed by the artist director to enhance the lyrical experience, especially of Fred, who attempts to understand his beautiful daughter, Lena (Rachel Weisz) and put to rest his obsession with music. Mick’s leading lady, Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda) is photographed mostly in close ups to capture the inherent beauty of her aging face.
As in the shots of the Italian/Swiss Alps, even the humans are vivid with a beauty that comes from being alive and adored by the old conductor and director. The contradictory nature of life is best expressed by the advent of Miss Universe (Madalina Diana Ghenea), who engages intellectually the old men in one scene and tempts them in another as if she were a cinematic Suzanna.
I could go on with the myriad eccentric characters, as if out of Fellini, but they are all to be seen to be appreciated. My appreciation comes from them, the gorgeous photography, and the thematic concerns that exalt the joy of life and eschew the fear of death. If it’s about life, then it is about Youth, regardless of the age:
“We only ever told each other the good things.” Fred Ballinger
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
