Novecento

Novecento (1976)
a film by Bernardo Bertolucci

There are many reasons for sitting down and watching a movie that is five hours long. First it could be because it is a master piece, the result of a great work and effort that has transcended time. Or maybe because it is because it is a piece of art in which the great use of the visual language provides a great emotional trip. Or maybe it is because the actors are great, or the topic is interesting and or it provides ground for discussion. All of this reasons and more are valid in the case of Novecento, and once it gets started is difficult to stop.

Novecento is the epic story of two friends that live in rural Italy through the first half of the twentieth century. One a landowner and the other one a worked, their stories are a document and a personal voyage through the events that defined those years and a beautiful tribute to Italy. This is not the kind of story in which you see the two armies facing each other, or the great artists in exhibition rooms, or the change in the cities and the country side. This is the history through the life of two friends that grow up together, and through the doors enter fascism and communism, enter the vanguards, enter the rural life and the class struggle.

The key to this story are definitely the characters and they are great and memorable. Donald Sutterland plays one of the most despicable bad-guys I have seen on a screen and Gerard Depardieu and Robert de Niro are enormous in their interpretations. However my favourite is the character of Ada, the free spirit crushed in the knot of history. I had to stop in the false-blind dancing scene and gasp seeing the great work of Bertolucci.

The images in this movie are amazing. The use of the seasons to follow the story starting with carefree summer and ending with promising spring is simply amazing, and the images in the film reminded me of the depictions of workers by Sorolla or Singer-Sargent, but also of Goya and Delacroix. Bertolucci features the sence of epic but also his skill to deal with personal relations and set the spirit of free love in the brutality of the events of history.

This movie is great, and it has passed to history of cinema as one of the great documents of the century, but it is also a great personal and emotional story. For all what happens on the screen, it is amazing it only lasts five hours.