A retired orchestra conductor is on holiday with his daughter and his
film director best friend in the Alps when he receives an invitation
from Queen Elizabeth II to perform for Prince Philip's birthday.
Director:Paolo Sorrentino
Writer:Paolo Sorrentino
Stars:Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz | See full cast and crew »
Storyline
Fred and Mick, two old friends, are on vacation in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a film director, is still working. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children's confused lives, Mick's enthusiastic young writers, and the other hotel guests. While Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important film, Fred has no intention of resuming his musical career. But someone wants at all costs to hear him conduct again.User Reviews
I'm not a professional
in film reviews, to begin with. I'm just an University student who's got
an enormous passion for cinema. It was years since a movie moved my
soul in such a profound way. I was stunned when I saw that the movie
summed up a 7.5 rating here on IMDb. I thought about this fact for some
days, then I kind of make up my answer. "Youth" is the symbol of many
struggles in cinema and in people's mind. American movies and many
Europeans ones as well are so easy to like, just because they're easy to
follow. They show facts, actions, somehow explained by words and some
ideas. Ideas are like the salt we put on on our meals to make them
tasty. Films like "Youth" are the exact opposite: words and ideas are
the "meal", and a few actions are the "salt". Actually all the actions
are at the end of the movie, they could be perceived as a climax, but
they're more like the conclusion of complex exchanges of ideas
throughout the movie. I won't comment about technical features, because I
don't have the expertise to do it. I just say that the soundtrack is
somewhere near perfection, editing as well and there some beautifully
shot scenes. As I said, my concern is not about that. "Youth" make the
viewer think about life, old age, ethics, it accompanies us through some
beautiful ideas, and this is where all pros and cons stay. This movie
doesn't look for easy ways to impress the viewer, to make him/her
somehow forcefully interested to what the screen shows, it requests an
open mind and what I ironically call "the 51st shade": a fetish to
thoughts, not only to material things. Some people don't like Sorrentino
because they consider him a "radical chic intellectual". It is a
righteous choice to be against "intellectualism" whatsoever, but it is
as well righteous to be against ignorance.
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