Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 3.0
Super-ambitious but skillfully made six-hour soap opera chronicles the lives of two brothers, Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni), as they go from being students together to drifting in their own respective directions: Nicola pursues medicine and marries a pianist with a revolutionary bent and Matteo joins the police and does battle with his demons. The story is fantastic and riveting - like the highest quality TV programming - and Giordana's style is basic and non-obstructive (avoiding flashy cinematic devices) - the movie loses a bit of cohesion when the Matteo character is no longer in there (he's by far the more complex brother) and the audience is supposed to believe these individuals are forty years older than they were several hours ago (make-up is a bit of a let-down, but I guess you can only do so much). Plus, any Italian film that takes its title (and inspiration) from a beautiful Pasolini poem ("Lord, we are alone you call on us no more") had better be good....
