04/05/2023 - Pupi Avati returns to the familiar ground of nostalgia in his new film about an absolute love and fading dreams, which he describes as his sincerest and most autobiographical work yet

Ordinary Time, in the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar, is the period between Lent and Advent which encompasses spring and summer, and it’s the season when most people choose to get married. It’s a cryptic-sounding title which Pupi Avati has chosen for his latest feature film, screening in roughly 300 Italian cinemas as of today, courtesy of Vision Distribution, but when we look a little closer, we realise that La quattordicesima domenica del tempo ordinario – as the director himself explained during the film’s presentation in Rome – refers to 24 January 1964, which was the day when the veteran Bologna-born director (now 84 years old with over 40 films under his filmmaking belt) married “the most beautiful girl in Bologna”, having chased her for a full four years. And it’s around such an absolute love, initially idyllic but ultimately painful, and around the fading nature of dreams, that the tireless director’s latest effort revolves; a director whom we left no more than a year ago, grappling with Dante [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile], and who’s now returning to the more agreeable ground of nostalgia.

The film opens with a poetic image, in black and white, of an old ice cream kiosk surrounded by smiling children, each with a cone in their hands. This is last century Bologna and it’s in that very same kiosk – “where the things you dreamed about, happened” – that Marzio meets Sandra, knocking a milkshake all over her. The story unfolds between the 1970s and the present-day, first when young Marzio and Sandra fall in love, each nurturing their own dreams – his revolving around music with his best friend Samuele, and hers around fashion as a model – and then, years later, when they bump into one another at a funeral and take stock of their failures.

Avati and his producer brother Antonio have played around with their cast once again, pulling together a group they describe as “a risky but exciting mix”, consisting of professionals, veterans, unexpected faces and newcomers alike: the singer from the band Lo Stato Sociale Lodo Guenzi (previously seen in Est [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antonio Pisu
film profile]) and the classical theatre director Gabriele Lavia respectively play Marzio as a young and elderly man; newcomer Camilla Ciraolo and the queen of sexy 1970s-80s comedies Edwige Fenech play Sandra of past and present; and the friend Samuele, who completes the triangle, borrows the features of young Nick Russo and the more seasoned Massimo Lopez, a renowned comic actor cast here in an unprecedented dramatic role.

“Beautiful things are stolen away from us”, as insisted by the battle song which young Marzio and Samuele - the duo behind I Leggenda - dream of bringing to the Sanremo Festival, before the more practical Samuele drops everything and accepts a permanent job in a bank. Marzio, for his part, ploughs on, following the illusion of a musical career and becoming an aging, melancholy, failed rocker who’s reduced to sponsoring a host of products just to appear on TV with his guitar.

Caught between pain and joy, sorrow and happiness, with deeply bitter undertones and bouts of deliberate sentimentalism, this is the film which Avati describes as his sincerest and most autobiographical work yet. “We’ve all failed when it comes to our dreams”, explains the director, who attempted a career as a jazz clarinet player in his youth. As for love, we think it guarantees us eternal happiness, but “sooner or later, life delivers a wake-up call”.

La quattordicesima domenica del tempo ordinario is produced by Duea Film and Minerva Pictures, alongside Vision Distribution and in collaboration with Sky.

(Translated from Italian)