Alessio Boni in particular as Matteo captures the screen with such tortured macho dynamism that it’s no wonder he’s gone on to play Heathcliff and Dracula in other mini-series.
The focus is primarily on two brothers from the 1960’s almost to the present, played by two actors who must be the equivalent of George Clooney and Richard Chamberlain in Italian television. “Best of Youth” combines charismatic acting, leisurely directing amidst beautiful scenery in several parts of Italy with writing that takes the trajectories of complex yet consistent characters’ lives believably and searingly affected by uniquely Italian experiences of the baby boomers’ young adult years through middle age, without the American tendency to reject or regret youthful ambitions, through the lens of local natural disasters, violent political activities, judicial battles against the Cosa Nostra, European economic changes, with regional variations, that Americans rarely see in movies. Comparison to the Italian film “The Leopard” is unfair as that was not created in the same format and covers a shorter period of historical time. in truncated theatrical versions as even PBS seems averse to television with subtitles so we rarely get to see the best of world television.
in movie theaters, though I’m not sure even shown in two parts of three hours each how edited it is from the original format, as other grand European mini-series like “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” “Das Boot” and “Fanny and Alexander” were originally only shown in the U.S. “Best of Youth” is being released in the U.S.
mini-series were more successful as sweeping historical epics, even when they were also family sagas like “Roots” and “Centennial ” when the networks tried to interpret more recent history, as in “The Sixties,” the set characters sped through “Zelig” and “Forest Gump”-like in happening to be at the right place at the right time perhaps the several seasons combined of the NBC series “American Dreams” could be considered comparable in showing how the times that are a-changing affect a family.
“Best of Youth (La Meglio gioventù)” proves that Italians have learned the art of the long-form television mini-series that the British have long mastered.Ĭovering a somewhat same period of the baby boom generation as “In A Land of Plenty,” it has more of the generational feel of individuals caught up in history as we have usually seen in British mini-series about end-of-the-eras or World War I, such as “Brideshead Revisited” and “Jewel in the Crown.” U.S. The Best of Youth (2003) YIFY – Download Movie TORRENT