Francesco Sossai, rising star of Italian cinema: “Reflecting on extremes can lead to authenticity”
In the movie “Le Dernier pour la route,” Francesco Sossai depicts Northern Italy in a inherently political road trip. The latest darling of Italian cinema is boldly tracing the footsteps of the greats.
Francesco Sossai is lost in thought. He takes advantage of the time the interpreter spends translating his responses from Italian to French to glance at his phone (or two). It’s understandable – just before our meeting, he learned that his film, “Le Dernier pour la route,” was nominated for sixteen David di Donatello awards (the Italian Cesar Awards, with the ceremony set for May 7), including Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Director.
An achievement, according to his press agents accompanying his release in France, almost a year after its debut in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Especially for a young filmmaker – 37 years old, to be precise – with a graduation film, a short film, and a feature film under his belt. Especially for “a film as modest as this one,” observes Francesco Sossai, still surprised by its success in Italian theaters. Especially when competing with a certain Paolo Sorrentino (and his “Grazia,” adored by international critics), also nominated.
The atmosphere is festive, and congratulations are in order. Nevertheless, one cannot help but think that it’s all part of the plan. Like their director, Francesco Sossai is attached to a certain idea of his country, an almost pictorial vision of its landscapes. “I wanted to create a ‘contre-capriccio,’ to tell the side of the story not seen in frescoes, the vast plain of the region dotted with cities.”
“This can be irreversible. We have destroyed what existed in the name of a strange idea of progress that has never materialized,” Francesco Sossai said. The film thus follows two free spirits with a penchant for alcohol who take on a third member, younger and less disheveled, on a road trip through the northeastern landscapes of Italy.
“The road-movies offer a topographical cinema,” confides the filmmaker, himself from the region. “I wanted to explore it as if it were an autonomous continent, recreating an interior map of it. I spent years traveling through the Venetian plain trying to see it with fresh eyes, as if it were the first time.”
Is “Le Dernier pour la route” a postcard film? Not exactly. Sossai has created a manifesto attacking an Italy that we are not used to seeing – rural, almost necrosed – a political work “especially as the two main characters, a product of an era as much as a reflection of the destiny of Italy over the last forty years, offer a form of resistance,” he says. “Italy has taken the opposite path of France and England. What we have done to our landscape is irreversible. We have destroyed what existed in the name of a strange idea of progress that has never materialized. Since 2008, we have been living in the ruins of this idea.”
A common thread in this evolving filmography is a play of oppositions, visually and narratively. The nostalgia of the 16mm, “a medium resistant to time and modernity,” meets the new millennium in his short film “L’Anniversaire d’Enrico” (2023). A factory worker philosophizes on the concept of “nothing” in “Altri cannibali” (2021), a study project he realized at the German Academy of Cinema and Television in Berlin.
Tragic and comic intertwine in “Le Dernier pour la route,” proof that “by reflecting on extremes, one can arrive at this mysterious object that is authenticity, tell life as it is: full of terrifying, ridiculous, beautiful, sad things.” With his cinema full of nuances and contradictions, Francesco Sossai has managed to convince the audience. On May 7, we will see if he has also convinced his peers.
[Video Embed: Click to watch] Source: Telerama
Read more: – https://www.telerama.fr/cinema/francesco-sossai-releve-du-cinema-italien-en-reflechissant-aux-extremes-on-peut-arriver-a-l-authenticite-7030561.php – Cannes, the unexpected revival of Italian cinema.
