17/07/2024 - Corrado Ceron’s romantic but sorrowful second feature speaks of the end of a relationship through a continual flow of thoughts, memories and flashbacks

It’s when we realise things are over that we often start to pay attention to them. This is exactly what happens with Milo, who starts writing messages to his wife, Nadia, when it’s clear she no longer loves him. Milo and Nadia are the protagonists of Corrado Ceron’s second feature film, L’invenzione di noi due, which was presented in a premiere at the 70th Taormina Film Festival and which is due for release in Italian cinemas on 18 July, distributed by Be Water Film in collaboration with Medusa. It’s a romantic yet sorrowful film which the Vicenza-based director (whose first feature, Olimpia’s Way [+see also:
trailer
interview: Corrado Ceron
film profile], was presented in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori line-up in 2022) adapted from the novel of the same name by Verona-born writer-come-comic book artist Matteo Bussola.

And it’s in the very same city of Verona that this story unfolds, telling the tale of a relationship which sees the past and the present interweaving in a continual flow of thoughts, memories and flashbacks. The narrating voice belongs to Milo (Lino Guanciale), who has been married to Nadia (Silvia D’Amico, whom Ceron also directed in Olimpia’s Way) for fifteen years. He still loves her, but the feeling is no longer mutual, or so it seems. The pair first met at school, while sitting at a desk which they shared at different times of the day and on which they’d leave pencil-written messages for one another. A few years later, they randomly bumped into and recognised one another. The film looks back over their love story, covering the milestones in their relationship: their big plans, their desire for a child, the discovery of their weaknesses, their first disappointments, the downscaling of their ambitions (to be an architect in his case and a writer in hers)… In short, the slow and inexorable transition “from loving one another with urgency to loving one another with patience”.

In order to reinvent himself and re-forge the spiritual connection which first led them to fall in love, Milo pretends to be someone else and starts sending emails to Nadia, resulting in intense correspondence, just like in college, where the two of them confide their innermost thoughts to one another and say things they can no longer express in everyday life. But Milo must also learn to manage the jealousy he feels upon seeing his wife taking an interest in and feeling desire for another man, who is actually none other than himself in this increasingly insidious game.

Both graduates of Italy’s National Academy of Dramatic Art and boasting solid theatrical backgrounds, Guanciale and D’Amico successfully convey the various nuances of love as it turns to dust with the passing of time. Ceron guides the audience through the couple’s highs and lows, sometimes quite literally attaching himself to his actors’ bodies (by way of a snorricam) and at others immersing us almost directly in his protagonists’ conversations, which are filmed in long sequence shots with the movie alternating between the two of them. There are also Milo’s memories which re-emerge and which follow the flow of his thoughts; snapshots of a life which speak louder than words and which emphasise the contrast between an earlier carefree time and the weighty disillusions of the present.

Like the book, the film is dedicated “to those who love one another but who can’t remember why”, and, in this respect, it’s easy to identify with the subject matter. The cast also stars Francesco Montanari (named Best Actor in the 2018 Cannes International Series Festival for his part in Il cacciatore) and Paolo Rossi (recently seen in Gloria! [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Margherita Vicario
film profile]).

L’invenzione di noi due was produced by K+ with the support of the Veneto region.

(Translated from Italian)