YOUTH

For more than thirty years, Paolo Sorrentino has been practically synonymous with the renewal of Italian cinema. His favourite theme: the passage of time, with its regrets and glories. In this second film in English, he reunites two old friends, one a famous conductor who retired long ago, the other an equally famous filmmaker getting to work on his latest movie. Together in a Swiss palace, a setting that allows the director to use his considerable visual talents to the fullest, the two octogenarians have the time and space to talk about all the ingredients of their remarkable lives. Funny and serious, occasionally absurd, Youth is somewhat old-fashioned. It reaffirms Sorrentino’s fascination with the “great beauty” of the arts, struggling to survive in our era of commercial vulgarity. In a series of scenes featuring brilliant supporting performances, sad clowns and dreamlike visions, he brings to life the anxieties of aging and the fear of looming death. Sorrentino has added another fine piece to a body of work that betrays his adoration of Fellini, with the help of a cast of legends and a keen sense of the sublime and the extreme.