L’IMMENSITA’
Italy/France, 2022. Director Emanuele Crialese. With Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani, Vincenzo Amato, Patrizio Francioni. Distribution Warner Bros. Runnin time 1h e 37’.
«L’immensità is the movie I’ve always chased». This is what Emanuele Crialese says about his fifth feature, in competition at Venezia 79. Crialese directs last year’s Coppa Volpi Penélope Cruz, who’s been immersed in Rome during the ‘70s. «This was always my next movie», Crialese explains, «but each time there was another story, it was like I wasn’t ready enough to face this one. I probably needed a wider range and a different awareness». This one is a long-awaited movie by an author who achieved great international success with his previous works. Crialese, born in Rome from a Sicilian family, makes movies that poetically overcome the gap between lands, cultures and even the boundaries of dream and reality. The natural element of his cinema is the sea, and his characters are often migrants. Such as those of his first film, Once We Were Strangers (1997). And the Sicilian travellers of the dawn of XX century of Nuovomondo, the film that consecrated the director with the Silver Lion in Venice in 2006. He then won the Grand Jury Prize with the following Terraferma (2011). Crialese also received the National Award Culture for Peace in 2014. Another thread connects Crialese’s works: love. In fact, L’immensità «is, first of all, a film about family like all my previous works». The family of Clara and Felice, who don’t love each other anymore, but are bound because of their children. Adriana is the eldest, she’s 12 and has an inner conflict regarding her identity. L’immensità is, according to Crialese, a tale about the innocence of the children and their relationship with the mother». Penélope Cruz has been fundamental, especially for «her sensibility and her extraordinary way to interact with three very young non-professional actors at their first experience who always remained intense and true children».
