11/01/2011

A low budget and high ambitions mark the debut film of 50-year-old Giuseppe Papasso, who in making Un giorno della vita [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“A Day in the Life”) was inspired by François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows to then “find” in the film evocations of Giuseppe Tornatore and even Giovanni Guareschi.

Produced by GFG Production and to be released January 14 on approximately 30 screens by Iris Film Un giorno della vita is set in the past (specifically, November 1964, in Basilicata), when villages were divided between fans of [TV characters] Don Camillo and Peppone, [Communist Party leader] Palmiro Togliatti died and La Dolce Vita was still considered scandalous. In this world, Salvatore (12-year-old newcomer Matteo Basso) struggles to feed his film passion, which is thwarted by his coarse father Pietro (Pascal Zullino), a peniless Communist.

While Pietro tries to indoctrinate him with proletariats and the bourgeoisie, the young boy dreams of sheriffs and Indians, Maciste and gladiators, and ultimately ends up in a reform school for a deed worthy of Antoine Doinel: Salvatore steals from the local Community Party office to get money for a film projector.

However the cast, which also comprises established actors long-used to appearing in debut films, such as Alessandro Haber, Ernesto Mahieux and Maria Grazia Cucinotta, cannot save Un giorno della vita from naivety – in the writing, mise-en-scene and even acting – in the director’s desire to make a "fairy tale about cinema and a world that no longer exists”. Adds Papasso: "1964 was an interesting year for various reasons, not only because of Togliatti’s funeral, but also the first women started going topless, the Vatican Council was underway and there was a huge explosion of parish film halls".

All of these elements appear in the film, even the (highly topical) difficulty in creating a dialogue between politics and culture. Which the combative Haber was quick to emphasise: "In order to save culture we need to take a resounding action [like] burning down a theatre or cinema in order to save the rest".