Le grand voyage de la vie

I know that fans of the man will be offended by my rating, some not even reading this. But let me tell you, that I had not heard of the character portrayed by Bruno Ganz here, nor had I read any of his books. Now why would I watch a movie about him then? That's the other thing. I have to mention it here once again: I avoid reading about the movies I'm going to watch. Bruno Ganz is a great actor and I was going in to watch his performance (and I was not disappointed in him).

But I had not idea or background info on what was going on. And that was a bad thing, because I could not put any of this into perspective. So I can only judge by what I was experiencing. In other words: If you are a fan and want to be offended, you will be. But try to look at this from another perspective, will you?

Apart from that and Brunos performance, the actor who portrayed the son, was not convincing. Not in my book at least. Acting-wise I though he was not up to the task. Which made the whole thing borderline watchable. But fortunately there was Bruno and he saved it somewhat ...

Transpositions of books to the screen are always difficult and partial, being the evocative power of the written word so distant from the directness and evidence of the visual image. Still more difficult it is when the book is a collection of thoughts and reflections passed by a father shortly before dying to his son, during some open-air dialogues. Tiziano Terzani has been a highly committed Italian journalist, who worked for 30 years for a German daily, as a correspondent in eastern countries in hot spots of Vietnam under war, and China under Mao, who, after discovering of suffering from cancer, devoted himself to the study and the practice of oriental spirituality, spending some solitary time in the Himalaya, and finally coming back to his home-place to spend his final days, enriched and enlivened by a strong sense of inner peace. In the movie, all his professional life is only taken for granted, and focus is laid on the spiritual and human depth he has reached throughout his life. This may be a choice of adherence to the book, but this is also the weakest and most unconvincing aspect of the picture, because whereas the book affords each reader the necessary individual time, and space to reflect upon each single page and phrase, the movie, which has the need to give as much as possible a comprehensive idea of a human soul, in a reasonable time run, results in a kind of forced "concentration" of reflections, quotations, opinions, ranging from Chinese Marxism to a universal communion between man and nature, with many topics in-between. Interesting and deep topics, indeed, but which sound too much, too methodically in sequence, in order to communicate as much as possible information about the man, but without the necessary time to assimilate them. In the end, the movie, instead of communicating peace of mind and soul, conveys an urgency of passing information. And even if Bruno Ganz proves perfect in his interpretation, some pathos in his pre-packed dialogues with his son is missing, and I found it difficult to empathize with him and his accounts. There are probably books that refuse cinema transpositions simply because demanding time, pauses, reflection, going back and forward, that cinema cannot obviously allow to the viewer. I think that the book "La fine è il mio inizio" belongs to this category: its intrinsic nature would make any transposition, however good and structured, always inadequate, recognizing the written word as its only appropriate means of expression.

About Bruno Ganz you can say that even a boring film is worth being watched just because of his acting. Which is so true once again. His acting is great, even if in the beginning it feels sometimes overacted. Why do I think it a boring film? I haven't read the book, but I'm convinced it's very interesting and moving at the same time. You probably can imagine every scene being told by Tiziano in all its colours. In the movie this doesn't work because you see those beautiful sceneries of Tuscany not letting room for your own fantasy to develop pictures in your mind. Somehow the movie feels like the pages just being filmed one by one. A pity the film wasn't done in Italian, it would have been so much more authentic. In addition, obviously Elio Germano (Folco) spoke his text in Italian being dubbed over in German which kind of feels strange because his lips speak the Italian words which don't match the German text in movement. If you like Bruno Ganz and the not worn out pictures of Tuscany go and watch the movie, if not, go for some other movie.

An excellent interpretation of the great (and unique) Tiziano Terzani! I guess everybody who love Terzani will appreciate this movie. Bruno Ganz identified itself in this journalist perfectly and I could appreciate this movie as an extraordinary experience! Well done Bruno! Also the interpretation of Elio Germano (Folco) is exciting. The landscapes of Toscana, and especially of Orsigna near Pistoia, are really surprising. The last scene at the top of the mountain is unexpected. The son Folco has made a difficult and long job (also because the book is a great remember of his father) but the results of the book and indirectly of the movie are excellent. At the end my comment is a bit subjective because for me Tiziano is unrepeatable, but I would invite everybody to read the book of Terzani. I would suggest "a fortune teller told me", was my first lecture in 1995 and then I read all other books. Not to be missed!