Wir waren so verliebt

Director Ettore Scola weaves a sensitive comedy-drama about the friendship of three men and the one woman each has loved. The men meet each other near the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy. As the next thirty years pass they remain friends although their lives take very different paths and become tinged with sadness and regret. The woman who pops in and out of their lives is Luciana (Stefania Sandrelli), an aspiring actress whose career peaks when she is cast as an extra in a Fellini movie. The three perennial friends are played by Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi and Stefano Satta Flores. Veteran actor Aldo Fabrizi (the priest in OPEN CITY) does a remarkable turn as a powerful industrialist who is as grotesquely unlikeable as he is grotesquely corpulent. Film buffs will enjoy the way Scola has cleverly included footage of DeSica's THE BICYCLE THIEF along with scenes of De Sica explicating that famous movie of his. They will also enjoy a funny re-creation of the filming of the Trevi fountain scene from LA DOLCE VITA, complete with Marcello Mastroianni and Federico Fellini. This is a very beautiful film about how individuals and society change over the years while friendship, "amicizia", remains an enduring value.

Sorry for being much too lenient but in these perverse times where everybody is talking of global warming, please excuse me when I say that I just have wonderful praises for this great film. It is great on every front. What is the yardstick by which a great film can be measured ? A great film can be recognized by its inherent ability to make viewers shed some emotional tears and weep inconsolably. This is what this great masterpiece by Ettore Scola did to me. We all loved each other is such a pleasant film that it can be compared to a sweet lullaby. The ease with which the various dramatic events happen is a joy to behold. I am not really sure about this fact but I think that may be French master Claude Sautet must have been influenced by this film when he decided to make a similar masterpiece called "Vincent, François, Paul et les autres".Which one is the better film ? Watch both of them and find out for yourself.

"We All Loved Each Other So Much" (Italian, 1974): A film by Ettore Scola. We follow three men-friends through 30 years - weaving in and out of each others their lives, alone or in various combinations, with one particular woman. They met as "brothers in war" during the Italian Resistance of WWII. With eventual peace, each traveled their own paths, crossing and remeeting every so often. The b/w photography is beautiful, the scoring perhaps a little heavy-handed (but considering the time – 1974 – downright subtle), the period "looks" seems accurate enough, and the acting by all involved is good. I enjoyed some of the film's devices, such as all the actors freezing in position and the one "in thought" getting a spotlight, the occasional near-repeat of a scene/incident, the actors sometimes speaking directly to you, and other breaks with the "reality" of a film. No doubt Woody Allen saw this work before his making "Annie Hall". You might also think of this film as a more somber, sophisticated version of "The Big Chill" with fewer main characters and more internal assessment.

This is a beautiful film about friendship and nostalgia, but above all about loving cinema. To me, this film defines "cinephilia". Cinema and the protagonists' lives are cleverly interwoven. The fleeting images of film, capturing a moment and then disappearing, only to linger in the memory, can be seen as a metaphor for the past that can not be recaptured, a past when we were young and happy and confident and the world was ours. When the credits roll, I feel this strange mixture of happiness and sadness. Oh, how I wish...

"We All Loved Each Other So Much" is one of those classics referenced here and there (though not so frequently) as a spectacular masterpiece, an almost unknown treasure to be sought and seen. After years looking for it I can finally say those opinions are right. But the movie deserves more. A heavy airplay on cable or even regular TV, a Criterion Collection treatment or a bigger studio making a massive home video release instead of cult cine-clubs who exhibit it from time to time. This movie is on the same league as "Amarcord", "Cinema Paradiso" and "Splendor" (1989) . The latter, like this one, is also directed by Ettore Scola and could be included as part of an informal Scola trilogy about nostalgia, that should be completed with "Le Bal" (1983). The themes and presentation of such are beautifully told, almost like a trademark that Italian and French cinema use frequently and always getting positive results that American cinema only dreams of reaching. The mark achieved here is to show the importance of memory, how time changes it, and the way things and events mold our essence, our friendships, our loves, our interests and each person's definition of happiness. And most important of all: how movies are a great part of all those things.

This is about three friends who served on the Italian resistance fighting against the Nazists and how their lives changed of direction during a course of 30 years. Mostly is about their similarities (at one point they all fell in love with the same woman) and the problems and events brought on them, with meetings and mismatches along the way. They are: Antonio (Nino Manfredi), a dedicated nurse whose career just stalled because of his political views, contrary to the current norm; the lawyer Gianni (Vittorio Gassman) an impeccable professional at the city hall who ends up corrupted by a powerful industrialist; and Nicola (Stefano Satta Flores), a movie buff who later becomes a film critic leaving family and kid behind after defending the greatness of "Bicycle Thieves" when the movie club he was part of accused De Sica's masterpiece of giving Italy a bad fame to the world.

The space is short, and I can't talk about all the characters but I must focus on my favorite, and the one I believe most of us will strongly identify with: the film addict, vigorously played by Satta Flores. Admit it, we are like him. Not in the wider sense of being extreme like he was but close. But I think we could lose friendships over our film ideals, defended to the death; we all like to believe we know everything about the subject and we really feel sorry for him when he loses the TV quiz about Italian cinema with a problematic misinterpreted question (he was right on the issue but the proposition was more simple than his answer). And if possible we would talk hours and hours and with the same verve and passion displayed by him. In an unforgettable moment, he recreates the Odessa stair sequence from "Battleship Potemkin" just to amuse a girl - and he succeeds it a bit! And that's what this movie is about: the power of movies and its importance in one's life. Nicola, like Antonio is known for his labor, don't get paid well and is far gone from his idealistic days after the war but he's deeply involved with what he does. A little cynic but happy which is the complete opposite of the more distanced friend, Gianni - but that's a story for you to discover by watching it.

Scola's nostalgic look for the past is embraceable, real, colorful but not that much, revealing the essence of who we truly are, people who think to have control over everything in our lives and we don't. At times engaging, lovely, other times saddening and so hard to not include events of your life and compare it with what the characters go through. Time comes and goes, our needs change, our concept of life and happiness go the same way as well or don't, we can disagree on politics and movies but there's friendship, love, admiration. And we are deeply connected by experiences, the best ones and the worst ones. I think if the trio had to select a moment to remember it would be their final battle during the war, in those snowy mountains. They would never have that same bond again. My favorite bit involving one of them was when the nurse got stopped by a film crew making "La Dolce Vita". The magic of it? Fellini and Mastroianni are there to play themselves recreating the famous Fontana de Trevi sequence, fourteen years later. Unforgettable. You won't be the same after watching this. 10/10