Paolo Sorrentino's Youth tells the story of two longtime friends in Fred, an acclaimed musical composer/conducter, and Mick, a renowned film director. Vacationing together in the Swiss Alps, the two old friends reminisce about their past and their children's troubles, most notably Fred's daughter, who has just had her husband, who happens to be Mick's son, walk out on her after having an affair with a young pop star. While Mick works feverously trying to finish his latest screenplay, imagining it will be his last important film, Fred shows absolutely no intentions of resuming his musical career, much to the chagrin of Queen Elizabeth II, who wants Fred to perform for Prince Philip's birthday. Paolo Sorrentino's Youth is a beautifully-photographed evocation on aging, friendship, love, loss, wisdom, and pain, being a film that is more interested in capturing the emotions that make up life than any truly cohesive narrative. While Youth's meditation on age is certainly a major aspect of the film, with the way Sorrentino effectively uses his beautiful visuals to juxtapose youth and maturity, I'd argue it is so much more, as Youth is a film that is pulsating with life itself. Through its various characters, some young and some old, Youth exhibits the emotion of life, with each character suffering with their own unique struggles of identity that are manifested by their perceived shortcomings in life. The film can be very beguiling at times and quite messy as well, falling into pretension, but fortunately Youth still captures a lot of universal truths about humanity, both young and old, revealing the pain, joy, and sense of yearning that can haunt all of us. Mick and Fred are two characters full of regrets and reservations about their past, attempting to accept that their story is coming to an end, but I'd argue the archs of both Fred's daughter and Jimmy Tree, a young actor, are just as compelling in their own right. Visually speaking, Youth has got to be, without question, one of the most stunning films of the year. Youth's visuals are engrossing, inventive, and offer a meditative quality throughout, and while the rest of the may struggle at times to live up to its eye-popping beauty, Youth still offers an impressionistic experience which touches on the human condition.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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