Set in Mussolini's Italy in 1938, The Beautiful Summer immediately strikes you with the quality of a very careful atmosphere. Laura Luchetti's third film, the mastery of the setting and the light, the demands of the reconstruction, the sets and the costumes, draw the eye in, and lead into a story where love will have a hard time facing up to a moralistic and repressive ideological context, where feelings are undermined by power.
This “beautiful summer” refers by its title to Faustine and the beautiful summer (Nina Companeez, 1972), but the film leaves the seduction of an adult by a teenager, for the love of one woman for another, at the dawn of the Second World War. The Beautiful Summer tells a thwarted passionate story, an impossible quest for love at a time when history is changing. On screens Wednesday November 27, 2024.
In 1938, Ginia and her brother settled in the large economic capital, Turin, with the ambition of succeeding in their professional life. Ginia's beauty and creativity make her a revelation within the haute couture workshop she joins. There she meets Amelia, the house's flagship model who poses for artists. She fascinates her and inspires in her an irrepressible love that is undermined under the yoke of a moralistic and repressive political regime.
At the end of adolescence, as a young adult, Ginia has everything to learn by joining, in Turin, a city life which opens the doors wide for her. Notably recognized for her talent, an innate seductress through her beauty and her intelligent quips, she falls under the spell of Amelia, but must initiate an affair with a man to better fit in.
Told from Ginia's point of view, The Beautiful Summer is also the story of the quest for recognition, for a look at oneself. If Ginia succeeds in her profession, socially and emotionally, that's something else. Strong and responsible, assuming her love for Amelia, she will try to seduce her. Will she succeed? That's the whole point of the film. The attraction also emanates from brother-sister relationships taken together at a crucial moment in their lives.
Laura Luchetti, director, brings a beautiful elegance to her staging which corroborates the world of fashion in which evolves The Beautiful Summer. Mussolini's omnipresence is evoked and endangers Ginia by the nature of her feelings. It dramatizes the action and contributes to the complexity of the character which only becomes more endearing.
Genre : Drama
Director:Laura Luchetti
Actors: Yile Yara Vianello, Deva Cassel, Nicolas Maupas, Alessandro Piavani, Adrien Dewitte, Anna Bellato, Gabriele Graham Gasco, Cosima Centurioni
Pays :Italy
Duration :1h53
Sortie : Wednesday November 27, 2024
Distributer : Outplay Films
Synopsis : 1938, in Turin. Ginia left home with her brother to find work in the city. She is particularly creative when it comes to sewing in the workshop where she is employed, while she is fascinated by her meeting with a young woman who is a model for artists.
