Post by joekiddlouischama on Feb 28, 2021 10:05:10 GMT
I just viewed it on Netflix; it is a Golden Globe "Best Motion Picture—Foreign Language" nominee and an Italian movie that stars Sophia Loren in her first feature film in about a decade and her first feature film as a lead actress in nearly two decades. After an initial viewing, I deem The Life Ahead "good." The best part is the first forty minutes or so, when the feel is more phenomenological—more neorealist, if you will—and the matter-of-fact observance and unforced tension create something quite engrossing. Thereafter, the movie suffers from some tonal inconsistency, with The Life Ahead not quite finding an optimal blend between that neorealist minimalism and a drift toward sentimentality. Indeed, the film's score—both instrumental and in song, both non-diegetic and diegetic—plays a role in this uneven quality. When The Life Ahead loses some of that rawboned naturalistic tension, easy and unforced, it slouches toward the comically curious and modestly poignant yet rather breezy Morris from America (2016), also a movie about an immigrant black boy in Europe. And the love-hate relationship between Loren and neophyte Ibrahima Gueye could have used more exploration of its evolution. Perhaps the film needed to be a little longer than its ninety-five-minute running length, but then again, given its naturally languid rhythms (more typical of European movies), maybe the running time was just enough.
Despite these questions and flaws, The Life Ahead features uniformly fine acting in that neorealist (or neo-neorealist, perhaps) vein, from the elderly to the children and everyone in between (also notable is the effortless performance of the supporting actress, Abril Zamora, as a mother and prostitute). The movie prospers from its Italian location shooting, and it offers a commendable sense of composition and elegant, unobtrusive camera movements. It also strikes an appreciable connection between refugees of the past and those of the present, yet without straining for political relevance, even though such political points would have been easy enough to make given the rise of xenophobia and authoritarianism around the world.
In short, if you retain an interest in idiosyncratic human acting and location shooting, or if you just want to see Sophia Loren in the winter of life, give The Life Ahead a look.
Despite these questions and flaws, The Life Ahead features uniformly fine acting in that neorealist (or neo-neorealist, perhaps) vein, from the elderly to the children and everyone in between (also notable is the effortless performance of the supporting actress, Abril Zamora, as a mother and prostitute). The movie prospers from its Italian location shooting, and it offers a commendable sense of composition and elegant, unobtrusive camera movements. It also strikes an appreciable connection between refugees of the past and those of the present, yet without straining for political relevance, even though such political points would have been easy enough to make given the rise of xenophobia and authoritarianism around the world.
In short, if you retain an interest in idiosyncratic human acting and location shooting, or if you just want to see Sophia Loren in the winter of life, give The Life Ahead a look.
