There were friendship, the relationship with time that passes and the betrayed expectations, the dreams of kids that fade into adult everyday life in a big metropolis, made up of fatigue, disappointments, grief, separations, but come back to life every time the music brings the four old friends back together with their instruments, no longer in a dusty cellar or on a stage from the ’70s but in the elegant notary’s office of one of them. Until a new fact leads the four to come to terms with what they believe and still ask from life.
This is the story told in Boys, the (beautiful) film by Davide Ferrario that opens out of competition 67th edition of Taormina Film Fest. Joe (Marco Paolini), Carlo (Giovanni Storti), Bobo (Giorgio Tirabassi) and Giacomo (Neri Marcorè) have always been friends, each with their own life and problems, but genuinely bonded and with a great common passion that made them meet: music.
The Boys, this is the name of the band, had had lightning success in the 70s. The disappearance of their leader made them give up, despite his younger brother being called to replace him. In their routine – between love and personal affairs – a possibility bursts which leads them on a new journey and meeting the former singer of the band, played by a convincing Isabel Russinova, 40 years later.
«Boys – explains Davide Ferrario, who took a break from his activity as a documentary director to shoot the film – is a story of friendship and personal relationships. Which, with the crisis of everything that can go into crisis, is what good we have left. Feeling part of a group, in this case a rock band, however agée, is still something that gives us a place in the world. Even more talking about old friends connecting past and present and fate tests their sincerity and value. The characters in the film belong to a generation, that is my generation, that never imagined to really grow old. But time does not make discounts. But even if each of them will have to face a “passing test”, they will discover that life can have unpredictable satisfactions in store. Relationships with women and younger characters become essential. It is only with their confrontation and their intervention that Joe, Carlo, Bobo and Giacomo finally become adult».
Ferrario’s thought about time goes further: «Being sixty today is strange, because you don’t feel old. But believing being still young is dangerous. Instead, we shouldn’t run after those who are younger than us, but be faithful to us and our past. Which does not mean regretting it with nostalgia, but being sincere witnesses to it, for better or for worse».
The most suitable genre to tell this story could only be comedy, mixed with road-movie elements, “to entertain, excite and make people think“. In the film, the language used by the Boys is rock, a medium capable of crossing generations.
The songs, original and effective, bear the excellent signature of Mauro Pagani: “Instinct – he explained – led me to rummage through the musical trunks of the early years of my career as a composer. I found pieces I wrote at that time and for mysterious reasons I hadn’t listened to again: music full of energy and lust for life that tell how important it was to fight for everything worthwhile. I decided it was time to share this music that is the core of the soundtrack. And I realized that the memory of those effervescent years, intoxicated with optimism, but also with contradictions, continues to shine with its own light and inebriate me. After all – he concludes – we just have to keep trying».
Boys will be released in cinemas on July 1st.
