Growing up in the often dark world of a gambling father has made Alberto De Michele advance more quickly into adulthood. Or so he says. At the same time, his often messy life has influenced him on the theme of his debut feature film. Similar to his short I lupi (2010), also centring on a father-son relationship and a robbery, The Last Ride of the Wolves [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Alberto De Michele
fiche film] follows Pasquale (De Michele), as he gathers his gang of cronies to pull off a money transport heist. Driving him around the Northern Italian pampa is his son Alberto, and soon, it becomes obvious that the money heist is not the only theft going down in this story.

The movie had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (26 January – 6 February) in the Bright Future section. De Michele spoke to Cineuropa via phone from Rotterdam.

Cineuropa: This is your debut film. Why this story, and how long has it been circulating in your head?
Alberto De Michele: I think I have been working on this for four years. It actually started when my father told me about his real idea to make this heist. And then it didn’t work out, so I thought, what is this, if not the motivation to make my first film? To use the medium of film to still make the heist happen.

How authentic are the father and son characters in the movie in comparison to you two?
I used all the real people. That is my father and that is me next to him. The thieves are also the people that were involved in the real to-be-heist. I wasn’t actually sure if everybody would participate, but I just realised it was very important for me to also film the preparation of the heist in a way that it would happen. People always expect that the preparation of a robbery is something very cinematic, but it’s actually very boring until the robbery itself.

How much of a script existed beforehand?
I had a script, but there was no dialogue. I had scripts where I knew what was supposed to be said, but I didn’t work with dialogues. It’s impossible to work with dialogues with people that have never acted before on this scale. It would have made it unnatural. I just wrote the scenes.

You chose to mostly shoot from the point of view of inside a car. There are very few scenes taking place outside of it.
I wanted to film it in a way that shows that the son has placed secret cameras. Since this was also my first film, I really wanted to find a special kind of language. And since it’s about a robbery, I thought of this idea of placing the cameras where you would place them at secret camera points of view. At the end, when the robbery happens, these cameras aren't there anymore, and the rules no longer apply.

There is also a certain melancholy to your film, the heist seems more like a chore than a thrilling gentleman trickery.
I think the movie portrays a group of people that is disappearing. Look at the soundtrack of the film, it’s using the radio, which is playing the music from their good old times, the golden 80s. So it has a certain melancholy.

People might have very strong opinions about your father watching this movie.
I think that I didn’t romanticise the characters in this film, I left them exactly as they are. I think it is up to everyone to think what they think or what they feel about them. With my work, I always try to show things as pure and clean as possible.