I ragazzi di via Panisperna

A nice portrait of the men involved in the study of the H-Bomb, the beginning of life lasting friendships amongst scientists in the middle of the century.

It's hard to find a movie that will touch such "hot" issues without loosing moderation: my feel is that this is a unique piece in its category.

Once more, the fact that a movie is "based on a true story" doesn't make the movie particularly interesting. The story is about a group of scientists who worked in Rome in the Thirties and later contributed to the development of the atomic bomb. All minus one, Ettore Majorana, whose disappearance creates very little suspense and is the subject of its own movie.

Professor Enrico Fermi is the most famous of the group and the focus around which the plot develops. Unfortunately, events seem to take place in a vacuum, the passing of time is not being indicated and the scenes move from Rome to Sicily and other locations without any cinematic connection. Therefore one should guess that the story starts around 1928, when Majorana was still an undergraduate and living with his mother (a useless role played by Virna Lisi). Already the brightest student, Majorana was sought after by his friends but already considered an eccentric. Fermi and Majorana meet the following year and from then on events overlap, with the Panisperna's boys experimenting and Majorana leaving Italy in 1933 to work with Heisenberg (the man himself, of Breaking Bad fame, but we don't get to see him).

Back to Italy, while Fermi and the boys enjoy success, Majorana is suffering physically and mentally. Finally in 1937 Majorana starts teaching at Naples, only to disappear mysteriously one year later. We do not follow the events leading to his disappearance, but just hear his friends talking about it. The movie wraps up with Fermi and his family sailing to the US in 1939, to escape the racial laws.

Allegedly, the movie was cut from a much longer TV mini-series and the result is definitely disappointing, although I am not sure adding more narration time would have helped a story that lacks anything even remotely cinematographic. There's no character development, no suspence and not even much of a narrative except following the main characters around to the university, to parties, to dinners and listening to disappointingly trivial conversations.

It is hard to find a work of art which satisfies on SEVERAL levels. Here is one. Gianni Amelio's film was originally made as a 4 hour film for Italian T.V. and was then brutally edited to just under two hours for theater release. This was due to its success, both critical and public, on being aired. Certainly those who were fortunate enough to savor the complexity of the 4 hr. version may have lamented the outcome of it's cinema 'brother'. On the surface this is an account of the fascinating days of early 'nuclear' physics, in the now famous laboratories of Rome's Via Panisperna where talented students under the leadership of Enrico Fermi made myriad discoveries about the proprieties of the atom. The 'genius' here was, however, not Dr. Fermi, but his retiring, reticent student Ettore Majorana, a young Sicilian of noble standing and of a lineage of scientific experts (his uncle was the famous scientist Quintino Majorana). Gianni Amelio (director of 'gems' such as "Stolen Children" and "Open Doors") here uses the subject matter to return to his own personal obsession... the relationship between 'father' and 'son' characters, the fragile condition of the 'genius', the struggle between ethics and ambition. Is it possible to see the 'original' Panisperna? If the answer is no, the 'for cinema' version still is well worth the experience. We will share in Ettore's quandaries so intensely and 'dangerously' portrayed by Andrea Prodan, we will re-discover the 30ies through Amelio's candid eye, and that of his amazing cinematographer, the late Tonino Nardi. Maybe Amelio's most private and honest film. See it.

The years are those of the rise of the fascism in Italy. At the center of the story is the beautiful but difficult friendship between scientist Enrico Fermi (Ennio Fantastichini) and his young pupil Ettore Majorana (Andrea Prodan), introverted and complicated in dealing with a life obviously not easy for him.

Ettore will first retire to Sicily, leaving behind the academic circles, then he will disappear without trace, leaving the now famous Fermi, who was leaving to go to America, only questions and unsolved questions.

Gianni Amelio's film, written with Vincenzo Cerami and Alessandro Sermoneta, is evocative in its idea and very elegant in its form. Maybe something more could have been tried to reveal, but even so it is very intriguing.