Nuovo Olimpo

So many reasons to like it , from main actors work ( Luisa Ranieri offers a gorgeous portrait of Titti ) to the 70 decade atmosphere, to the humor and, especialy admirable elegance are good reasons to see it. Again.

Because it is one of films using as efficient kick for return across personal memories about encounters and old stories who, after decades, are more fresh or present than in moments when they are real facts.

But the real good point is the wisedom to not propose a manifesto, a lesson or a moral. Only a story about intense love of youth , an accident changing everything, the profession as way of succes .

Sure, the physical beauty of Andrea di Luigi and Damiano Gavino is a not insignificant virtue, but the gift for viewer remains the clever manner to craft a story using smart the cliches of a remarkable director.

The gay crust is just splendid used for a clear- tender- nostalgic state of heart .

So, not bad idea to see it.

In 1978, the Istanbul-born director Ferzan ÖZPETEK came to Rome. And that's exactly when his semi-autobiographical film, which he directed for the global streaming platform NETFLIX, takes place.

At the end of the 1970s, Rome and its CINECITTA were the center of the European film industry. Filmmaking is becoming a little more difficult (especially due to the increasing popularity of television in Italy), but CINECITTA can still draw on the triumphs of the past. Classics like IL GIARDINO DEI FINZI-CONTINI show the resolute Titti (great: Luisa RANIERI) in her arthouse cinema NUOVO OLIMPO in the north-east of Rome. The cinema is particularly popular as a meeting place for homosexual men who use the toilet for extensive cruising. The film student Enea (Damiano GAVINO) and the medical student Pietro (Andrea Di LUIGI) also get to know and love each other. The beginning of a great love! But times in Rome back then were extremely complicated for various reasons, as we know from numerous genre films from ItaloCinema. Due to a particularly stupid coincidence, the two young men lose sight of each other. It wasn't until many years later that they met again under dramatic circumstances. The ophthalmologist Pietro is now married to the beautiful Giulia (Greta SCARANO), and the celebrated film director Enea is in a relationship with the robust Antonio (Alvise RIGO)...

Beautiful images from Rome (filmed primarily in the Monte Sacro district on the eastern bank of the Tiber), a romantic love story between two men and a wonderfully nostalgic look at the Italian film world! Despite minor weaknesses in the script, Ferzan ÖZPETEK has managed to create a fairytale-like look back at a bygone era.

It's an exploration of an undying love and deep longing.

Something that 'the heart never forgets', come what may. One can do everything to throw roadblocks in one's own way, or detour to distractions, or run away, but the heart is relentless in what it desires.

Good performances from everyone, very believable characters - one could feel the deep ache throughout the movie. But the ending was a bit of a letdown. One would have thought that the sheer force of their feelings would get them to merge, but they inexplicably sabotage themselves again. Though there is an opening left for possible future interaction, the movie actually cuts to an alternate possibility, in the past, when things could have been pleasantly different for them. I wish they had fought for love.

It's based on a true story, so I guess they didn't take liberties.

Gorgeous cinematography. A fabulous soundtrack. Beautiful actors. And some enjoyably full-bodied performances. But for all that Nuovo Olimpo never quite achieves the heights of romantic melodrama to which it aspires. That's partly because the plot is just too silly, even for a Douglas Sirk-style tear-jerker. But also partly because so much of it is just too glossy, too idealised, too calculated for effect. It also doesn't help that the characters have little to no depth. As much as I wanted to surrender to the romance and nostalgia, the clunky artiface of it all constantly gets in the way of any suspension of disbelief. But it's nice to look at, and its worth sticking around for the unintentional comedy provided by a couple of plot twists that you'd only otherwise find in a daytime soap.

The story is so good. Two main actors are amazing. Screenplay, music...are harmony with this film.

Love declined in all its forms, facets, and contradictions.

It is said that the only loves destined to last forever are the impossible ones. You can believe it. You may think differently.

One thing, however, is certain, impossible loves, or rather, those that do not have the opportunity to be lived to the full, are the ones we remember forever.

And the love told by Nuovo Olimpo is part of this category.

Nuovo Olimpo is a film capable of reaching the hearts not only of cinema enthusiasts or Ozpetek fans but of all those who have loved in their lives.

Nuovo Olimpo is pure romance and having, even if only for a couple of hours, this feeling of amazement, passion, disappointment, melancholy, and nostalgia is a true wonder.