anatomia!

I've just finished watching the first half of The Best of Youth for the second time. I have yet to see the second part. I'm actually glad I got the chance to see it this way - it's been four or five months since I saw part one at the Metro, and I have to confess that at the time it took me a while to separate the characters from each other and just grasp the basic mechanics of the story. This time, though, everything is just leaping out. The Iliad references. The fucking great music that's used not sloppily like an Alfredo sauce but gingerly like - erm, ginger. The fantastic character actors. I've made the stylistic choice to write a bunch of sentences with no predicates and I'm going to go with it. The skeleton that's in the very first scene. The fact that the guy who plays Carlo Tomassi looks just like the guy who played John-boy on The Waltons. All the Larger Themes.

The story is peppered with what are obviously some major historical and cultural touchstones from the past forty years but I don't recognize any of them, since it's Italy. I wonder how Italians feel about the movie. Is it too bald-faced a reflection of their nation's recent past? Do they think it's cheesy? How do Italians really feel about Fausto Leali? Did they all press pause after the jukebox scene and hop on LimeWire to download '"A chi" like I did? Or is Fausto Leali to Italy what Anne Murray is to Canada? These are things I want to know!

But they can wait till I see part two, which will be tomorrow. I can not sleep fast enough.