Citizens of the World

If you are looking for an entertainment with heroes that you can identify with, especially if you have reached retirement age or if you have parents or grandparents at this age, then 'Lontano Lontano', the 2019 film by Italian director Gianni di Gregorio can be exactly what you need. Di Gregorio, who is also the author of the screenplay and plays one of the lead roles, has created a story that seems to belong, like its heroes, to another era - an era in which people were not only more decent, but also able to plan. to travel or even settle in another country, to be, as the English title of the film says - 'Citizens of the World'.

The heroes of the film are three Italian retirees who have lived most or perhaps their entire lives in Rome or around this city. All three are lonely, their pensions, if they have them, are close to the minimum, they hardly meet ends and their knowledge about the rest of the world and even about the laws of the country and society in which they live is very limited. Corona is still just a brand of beer that the three have probably not heard of, so Europe and the whole world is open to them, and theoretically they could move to another country, somewhere where their precarious pensions in Italy are worth a lot so that their lives would be much more comfortable. Within a week we will watch the three heroes debating with each other and with themselves the idea of leaving the country they had lived in until then and the familiar environment in which they had lived all their lives to embark on the adventure of relocating to another country at old age. The mirage is strong but venturing into the unknown is not an easy decision.

The film has an indisputable charm due primarily to the warmth with which the director films the environment in which their heroes live their lives. The three retirees live in a world that tells them almost bluntly that they are no longer needed, the laws and the ways the capitalist economy and digital society function are increasingly hard to understand to them, but at least some of the people around have not changed much for the worse and the fabric of social relations added to the familiarity of the landscape with its bars, restaurants, market booths, even their neglected homes function as the best social safety net. The three actors, Ennio Fantastichini, Giorgio Colangeli, and film director Gianni Di Gregorio play with talent and empathy the roles of the three heroes, with their doubts and hard to take decisions, with their old age and their difficulties, dreams and disappointments. They are in fact the generation of children in the neo-realistic Italian films of the '50s and' 60s who have now reached the age of old age and are facing what Italy has become tourist and consumer. Based largely on the charm of the actors and the empathy between the audience, the characters and the world in which they live, the film does not develop, unfortunately more intrigue, and therefore the demonstration seems a bit simplistic and rhetorical and at the end of the week described in the film, we, spectators, risk being a little disappointed. 'Lontano Lontano' is a nice and human film, which could have been a very good one if it had been more daring.