A Last Kiss worth millions

Gabriele Muccino's L'ultimo bacio defies Italian convention in moviemaking

Although we're not much aware of them on this side of the Atlantic, over the past few years a new generation of Italian filmmakers has begun to emerge. Unlike their more famous predecessors, these young directors are defined by neither a political position nor an aesthetic approach, but are more unified by a new spirit of independence, of breaking away from old models and genres.
The most successful of these is without question Gabriele Muccino, the 35-year-old Roman filmmaker whose third film, The Last Kiss (L'ultimo bacio), has become one of Italy's greatest box-office successes.
A gem of a film about relationships at a crisis point, The Last Kiss centres on Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) who have been happily living together for three years; when Giulia discovers she is pregnant, she is ecstatic, but Carlo panics. The news also impacts on Giulia's mother Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), who after 29 years of marriage, suddenly realizes she will be a grandmother and laments that her youth has slipped away. When Carlo meets beautiful 18-year-old schoolgirl Francesca (Martina Stella), he is captivated and pursues her for one last fling. In the meantime, his buddies are having a crisis of their own. Think Magnolia meets American Beauty.
Muccino, who is currently shooting Ricordati di Me starring Monica Bellucci and Laura Morante in Rome, talked to Tandem about The Last Kiss.

The film is about modern-day relationships.
"It's a film that has as its major theme the structural incapacity to grow up. It's the story of three couples, young men and women in their thirties. The central relationship is that of Carlo and Giulia who are expecting a child. He becomes uneasy about the relationship, about a life that is, let's say, completed. Consequently, nervously and restlessly, he finds an alternative to this route. Then there's the story of his friend, Adriano, who has a child but who also experiences a veritable collapse in his relationship. There's also the story of Giulia's mother, a 50-year-old woman who has the same fear as that of her son-in-law's. In her case it's not so much the fear of growing up, but the fear of ageing. These tales of restlessness criss-cross each other continuously in the film, and finally lead towards a happy ending, even one of spiritual serenity. It's this movement that follows all of the film's characters. And there are many of them. I call it a 'choral' film in which there are eight characters and all of whom experience an anarchic explosion towards a something, which is revealed as both anarchic and confusing."

Is this anxiety something you can relate to?
"I've paid particular attention to these symptoms of restlessness and wanting to be an adolescent that are inside of me, as well as those of a generation older than myself. It's a neurotic desire. There are these older mothers with facelifts and plastic surgeries who are physically more attractive, but their attempts verge on the ridiculous. I believe it's a neurosis of our time. I believe, however, that appearances are an absolute vanity, that bring with it a chain reaction of events. It's superficial and consequently brings about the incapacity to grow both spiritually and aesthetically. It's an enormous void without an end that, I believe, is universal.

Are the characters based on people you know?
"They have traits of people that I know, also of my own personality. One of the characters was inspired by Intimacy, a book by Hanef Koreishi. The mother was also inspired by a book. But they're all part of my imagination, part of my sensibility which I then translated into my characters."

Were you surprised at the success of The Last Kiss in Italy?
"Yes. I didn't think that it was a film which has such a deep emotional incisiveness that would do so well. Also because I believe that the film is deeply bitter, and in Italy films that aren't Christmas comedies haven't made money for more than 20 years. Regardless, it's been something that has changed my life profoundly."

How so?
"Now I'm recognized in the street. Everything I say is printed in newspapers and magazines, I'm followed when I go on vacation. These are things that are at least bearable. But what changes you spiritually is the fear of what's to come. It's like losing all relationship with what you've accomplished so far. In the past I could make a film by light-heartedly paying attention to my instincts. But now it's hard for me to remain oblivious because I'm obliged to not ignore the audience's expectations of me. A success this big brings with it this uncertainty."

Miramax has hired you to direct two English-language films. How do you feel about filming in English?
"I think it's a huge challenge that I'm willing to try. If it's a screenplay that I feel affinity with, I'll be able to squeeze from it the same amount of emotional soulfulness that I can from an Italian film. Language is a relative obstacle. The biggest challenge will be directing and working with actors. But I believe I can overcome that as well."

Miramax likes to use famous actors. Are you worried?
"Important actors don't intimidate me at all. The only thing that worries me is the control of the language, that of controlling the nuances and reflections."

Do you believe that there's a renaissance in Italian cinema today?
"I believe that we've managed to come out of a snobbish hermeticism that has predominated the Italian scene since the late '70s through to the 1980s and even 1990s. What I found is that the auteurs shut themselves in this strange and perverse hermeticism where they wanted to reach few instead of many, and becoming popular had become an insult; this shut off communication with the public, with the audiences. I now know that we've generationally overcome this complex about popularity being a defect. The auteur was greatly presumptuous, and consequently the Italian public abandoned Italian cinema because it was frustrated and disappointed. Inevitably, the past four to five years have yielded beautiful Italian movies. Now Italian cinema has restructured itself, and us filmmakers have reconnected with an audience that had gone astray."


The Last Kiss opens in local cinemas on August 9.

Publication Date: 2002-08-04
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1648