Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on entertainment news
Distributed by I Wonder Pictures and Unipol Biografilm Collection in 50 theaters starting from 16 March, Very quietly is the first work of Nicholas Prosatore that tells a coming-of-age story set in the suburbs of Naples. Dominique Donnarumma, Giuseppe Pirozzi, Antonia Truppo, Giovanni Esposito, Antonio De Matteo, Massimiliano Caiazzo and Lello Arena are the charismatic protagonists of this modern fairy tale with an 80s flavor suitable for a heterogeneous audience. A small film that manages to convey its internal, narrative and emotional power, without jumping through hoops but limiting itself to telling a life story.
Very quietly: the plot of the movie
In 1987 Anna he’s almost a teenager. She lives alone with her mother and plays the pianola, but she seems to be in a hurry to grow up. She tries to put on makeup, to smoke and to seduce the male gender like older women, but the window of her room overlooks the courtyard of a palace-castle in the middle of a beautiful nothingness which soon transforms her life. The meeting with Peppinoa boy of his age, and with Cyrus, the thug who destabilizes the neighborhood, will take her to the edge of that small world. Childhood must necessarily end and adolescence seeks its own space and the expectation of her redemption.
The 80s flavor between music, football and Meaning what
The young director Prosatore also signs the screenplay with Antonia Truppo, Francesco Agostini and Davide Serino. There music and the look of the charactersi takes us back to the end of the 80s from the first scenes, in the year in which Napoli wins the Scudetto in a suburb that struggles every day to keep going. Anna and the other inhabitants of the neighborhood they are about to lose their home, do menial jobs, and some are connected with organized crime which sometimes seems to be the only way to leave that difficult reality behind and try to have a better life, elsewhere. Anna flips through the pages of Meaning whatdances and plays alone in her room, often argues with her mother who would like a different future for her but never guesses the right way to confront. Peppino is a good boy who gets involved in his shady business despite him, confused and shy, but his experience makes him grow.
An intense and delicate debut film
Very quietly it is a delicate and intense film at the same time, a coming of age from the soul of the South which, however, does not surrender to the inflated narrative of that reality. It’s not the umpteenth Gomorrahbut tells a cross-section of that world focusing on the protagonists, their fears, their hopes for the future, their daily challenges. No need for constant shooting, chasing and showdowns, but everything is well calibrated and realistic to experience the emotion of first crushes, the discomfort of poverty, the anxiety of danger and the responsibility of deciding which side to take, between good and evil, between right and wrong. Naples is there but you can’t see it, at least until the white and blue triumph that overwhelms the shot at the end of the film following the victory of the football team. Prosatore takes great care of directingdiscreet but effective, and the composition of the scenes that seem to give importance to even the apparently insignificant detail, such as a slice of pastiera kept in foil, the play of lights in a basement setting for a thriller moment, the transparency of a poster which in reality it’s a secret passage, the camera movements and editing cuts exploited in an expressive key.
Prosatore demonstrates that a high budget and powerful means are not essential to make a good film, sincere and intelligent writing is enough, combined with a valuable cast and feeling.
Source-tg24.sky.it