NUOVO OLIMPO

Italy, 2023, 113 minutes, Colour.

Damiano Gavino, Andrea de Luigi, Alvise Rego, Luisa Ranieri, Greta Scarano.

Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek.

Ferzan Ozpetek came from Turkey to Italy in the 1990s and settled there, becoming a writer and director, many serious dramas for more than a quarter of a century.

The director is a gay man and homosexual relationships are central to most of his dramas. In 2019, he probed the issue of same-sexual relationships in the context of parenting.

In this film, the development of the relationship is somewhat in reverse, a young man involved in the film industry encountering a student doctor, the beginnings of an intense relationship, and then circumstances changing, a lost relationship. And the director uses the passing of time for the drama,

Time, space and distance.

The film opens in 1978 in Rome, a scene of filming near the Forum, the encounter between the two men, the context of political terror at the period, riots, stances, arrests. The film then moves forward 10 years to 1988, by this time the young man a middle-aged successful film director and the other man a successful doctor, ophthalmologist. And then the film moves to the early 1990s, focusing on the time of the death of Federico Fellini and its effect on Italian filmmakers – and the filmmaker momentarily seeing the doctor through the windows of a train.

And then the film moves to 2015. The director has had a very successful career, admired by the media and critics, an openly gay film director. The doctor has been married for many years, has a social life, a successful career in eye surgery.

Now comes the contrivance to bring the two men together again, an eye accident for the director at the studio, the surgeon operating on him. The director being bandaged, but detecting the voice. Complications at home, and a final meeting, an acknowledgement of what has happened over the decades, and, over the final credits, a reminiscence and wistfulness of what might have been.

The opening part of the film is quite explicit in its presentation of nudity and the sexual relationship, later the film reflecting on this kind of openness.

And the title? In 1978 it is a cinema which specialises in Italian classics, changing program every day, but also its corridors and toilets being used as a gay pickup centre. At the cashier’s desk is a significant character, Titti, who befriends both men and is later significant in the development of the plot. By 1988, it has become a sex cinema. So, the cinema comes symbolic of the men, for the men, issues of relationships and sexuality.

1. The career of the director, Turkish-Italian, his perspectives on Italian life? Relational issues, and the sexual relationships?
2. The title, the classic cinema, screening classics daily, and the audience, rendezvous for gay cruising, the regular men, the customers, the toilets? Titti the cashier? The usher? 1978? 1988 and the tradition to its being a sex cinema? The place for the meeting between Enea and Pietro? Memories?
3. The audience for the film, the gay audience, identifying with the characters, their experiences, the relationship? The explicit nudity and sexual encounters? These sequences for the ordinary audience? Significant for the development of the narrative, characters and relationships?
4. The character of Enea, the opening, the scene at the Forum, the woman shooting, the scene from the film, the crowd watching, Pietro watching, and his job, the gaze between the two men?
5. Enea, his age, student of cinema, working on sets, his relationship with Alice, sexual, friendship? His orientation, attending the cinema, watching the film’s and studying them, yet knowing the cruising men, antagonism with the usher, friendship with Titti? The encounter with Pietro, the toilet, his refusal, the next day, the encounter, going to the grandmother’s house, tentative, impassioned, the dance sequence, the aftermath? The effect on each of them?
6. Pietro, age, student, medicine, visiting his mother, the surgery? Gay orientation, going to the cinema, seeing Enea, the initial reluctance, the meeting, the encounter and the aftermath? The visits to the cinema?
7. The political background of 1978, antifascist demonstrations, the character of Molotov and his making the bombs, his friend and the protests, Alice and the protests, urging Enea, his declining? The meetings with Pietro, the films, the meals, the plan for Pietro to visit his mother, their meeting up for the meal, the protests, the police pursuing them, into the cinema, Enea’s escape, Pietro, the police pursuit, run over by the car, his broken arm?
8. The broken contact, 10 years passing? Enea, his career, successful director, his film topics, the media, friendships, his world? Pietro, doctor, ophthalmologist, Giulia, the marriage, his relationship with her?
9. 1993, the death of Fellini, Enea and his upset, in the train, looking across, seeing Pietro with his wife, the train drawing away? Enea and his being celebrated? The party, the relationship with Alice, Antonio, imposing presence, making the cake, the two seemingly different, the kiss, the relationship, the long relationship?
10. Enea at the supermarket, the encounter with Titti, reminiscing about the past, her ambitions, dressing like the singer, Mina, her apartment, the letter from Pietro, the conversations, finding the letter, Enea ringing but the phone number not valid, the fact that Pietro had returned to the cinema, reached out? And the sad effect for Titti as Enea other left?
11. 2015, so many years passing, Enea and his 14^th film and the celebration? At the studio, the setup, the accident, the glass in his eye? The hospital?
12. Pietro, the relationship with Julia, the many years, their social life, tensions, his career? The scene with the two couples watching the same film with Anna Magnani, memories of the past, the conversations?
13. Pietro, going out, going to the press conference, Enea a celebrity, praising Antonio, the public response?
14. Enea going to hospital, Pietro being asked to do the surgery, his hesitation, performing it, Enea and his eyes covered, recognising Pietro’s voice? The aftermath?
15. The phone call, Enea wanting Pietro to visit him, Giulia speaking on the phone, inviting him to the meal, the others not coming, his arrival, the two men looking at each other? Giulia, her comment, that Pietro had never looked at her like that, they are urging him to follow?
16. Pietro, willingly going, finding Enea, together, so m yearanys passing, Enea going home, urging Pietro to go home?
17. And the finale with the credits, tracking back to the restaurant, the meals of the past, what might have been?