The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago has organized a virtual screening of Mario Martone’s film, “Il Giovane Favoloso” (2014), scheduled from March 11 to 14.
The Italian director’s movie recounts the life of writer Giacomo Leopardi, beginning with his childhood. He is a child prodigy who grows up under his father’s relentless gaze in a house that is a library. His mind travels far but his home is a prison. While he reads everything, the universe remains outside. In Europe, the world is changing, revolutions erupt, and Giacomo desperately searches for contact with the outside world. At the age of twenty-four, when he finally leaves Recanati, Italy’s high society opens its doors to him, but he is unable to adapt and fit in. In Florence he becomes entangled in a love triangle between Antonio Ranieri, the Neapolitan friend with whom he shares a house in the bohemian fashion, and the beautiful Fanny. In the end, he moves to Naples with Ranieri where he lives surrounded by the wretched, desperate and vital spectacle of the working-class city. A cholera epidemic breaks out: Giacomo and Ranieri complete the last leg of their long journey, to reach a villa immersed in the countryside at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. A story of genius, suffering, poetry, love and adventure.
Viewing is in original language with subtitles. To book: https://www.mymovies.it/ondemand/iic/movie/11129-il-giovane-favoloso-/
