Before the Revolution
Italy is the place where they've made an art of everything - especially love!
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Produced by Iride Cinematografica
A melancholic study of youthful idealism and desire colliding with political awakening and emotional instability in pre-revolutionary Italy.
The study of a youth on the edge of adulthood and his aunt, ten years older. Fabrizio is passionate, idealistic, influenced by Cesare, a teacher and Marxist, engaged to the lovely but bourgeois Clelia, and stung by the drowning of his mercurial friend Agostino, a possible suicide. Gina is herself a bundle of nervous energy, alternately sweet, seductive, poetic, distracted, and unhinged. They begin a love affair after Agostino's funeral, then Gina confuses Fabrizio by sleeping with a stranger. Their visits to Cesare and then to Puck, one of Gina's older friends, a landowner losing his land, dramatize contrasting images of Italy's future. Their own futures are bleak.
Essence
Ensemble
Like Before the Revolution
Nearest across the full emotional profile.
Same Mood as Before the Revolution
Nearest on what's most distinctive about this one.
Like Before the Revolution, But Darker
Similar, pushed toward heavier and more intense.
Like Before the Revolution, But Lighter
Similar, pushed toward warmer and easier.
Like Before the Revolution, But Less Popular
Same territory, far fewer people have seen it.
