A keenly awaited biopic of
beloved Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, one of three Italian
films contending for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival, was screened on Monday at the Lido.
Rebellion and diversity are the modern keys to
understanding Giacomo Leopardi, according to Mario Martone,
director of Leopardi, whose Italian title 'Il Giovane Favoloso'
(The Fabulous Young Man), is taken from a short story by Anna
Maria Ortese and refers to the poet's precocity and prodigious
learning at a young age.
The film portrays the life of the 19th-century Italian poet
and philosopher, played by Elio Germano.
"You don't have to know Leopardi's work to follow the story
of the journey of this man, a story of emancipation, escape, and
breaking all the cages into which life itself forces us,"
Martone said.
Martone said the film couldn't have been made without
Germano, who embodies the role spending most of the film walking
hunched over with a curved spine.
"Being Giacomo was my dream," Germano said.
Leopardi is one of two films about great Italian poets
tipped as vying for the Golden Lion, the other being Abel
Ferrara's Pasolini, in which Willem Defoe uncannily captures the
visionary writer and filmmaker slain in murky circumstances on
November 2, 1975.
Another of the three Italian contenders for Venice's top
prize, director Saverio Costanzo's Hungry Hearts, was warmly
received by members of the international press on Monday after
its screening on Sunday.
The film, starring Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher, was
called "a winning psychological drama" by UK'S The Telegraph,
praised as "excellent" by The Independent, "absolutely
surprising" by Radio France Internationale, and "splendidly
acted, with strong and credible narration" by Reuters.
"This film alone would be enough to make Adam Driver a
star," said the BBC's Emma Jones.
Hungry Hearts takes place in New York City, where a couple
battles over their son's diet.
In the film, the mother, played by Rohrwacher, insists on
vegan fare, but the father, played by Driver, has to intervene
when their son eventually becomes ill.
Leopardi is scheduled for release in Italy in October 2014,
while Hungry Hearts is slated for release in January 2015.
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