Nuovo Olimpo

Gorgeous Rome makes the perfect setting for this story of romance, lost love, nostalgia, melancholy and the "what ifs" of life. I absolutely loved this quiet, understated, touching film. Two beautiful men meet, in a way that gay and bi men often used to have to meet, and they experience a brief, passionate romance that stays with them all of their lives.

Excellent acting, cinematography and direction is enhanced with some beautiful lines of dialogue. Most people, as they get older, can probably relate to the feeling you get when you remember that love that somehow got away but stays in your heart and your memory forever.

It's an exploration of an undying love and deep longing.

Something that 'the heart never forgets', come what may. One can do everything to throw roadblocks in one's own way, or detour to distractions, or run away, but the heart is relentless in what it desires.

Good performances from everyone, very believable characters - one could feel the deep ache throughout the movie. But the ending was a bit of a letdown. One would have thought that the sheer force of their feelings would get them to merge, but they inexplicably sabotage themselves again. Though there is an opening left for possible future interaction, the movie actually cuts to an alternate possibility, in the past, when things could have been pleasantly different for them. I wish they had fought for love.

It's based on a true story, so I guess they didn't take liberties.

Gorgeous cinematography. A fabulous soundtrack. Beautiful actors. And some enjoyably full-bodied performances. But for all that Nuovo Olimpo never quite achieves the heights of romantic melodrama to which it aspires. That's partly because the plot is just too silly, even for a Douglas Sirk-style tear-jerker. But also partly because so much of it is just too glossy, too idealised, too calculated for effect. It also doesn't help that the characters have little to no depth. As much as I wanted to surrender to the romance and nostalgia, the clunky artiface of it all constantly gets in the way of any suspension of disbelief. But it's nice to look at, and its worth sticking around for the unintentional comedy provided by a couple of plot twists that you'd only otherwise find in a daytime soap.

Is not easy to find a good movie about this. And Nuovo Olimpo is a good one: elegant, touching and beautiful film about love, passion or memories of times already gone, but remain always with you doesn't matter how many years pass.

This movie is a full package: good casting, directing, acting, photography, music , story line, the end and that 70's Italian atmosphere results in a surprinly good film that I wasn't expecting and that feeling is so good, when you have zero expectations and you find something like this. Probably Nuovo Olimpo will make you cry and feel emotional; and it is good , the movie works and touch you.

On 22 October 2023, after the opening of the Rome Film Festival on 1 November 2023, Ferzan Özpetek's film was released on Netflix.

He wrote the script together with his old friend Gianni Romoli.

The release date of the film was not chosen randomly. The story of the film begins 30 years ago on 1 November.

Özpetek's films are divided into two categories.

A) films with a Turkish crew in whole or in part b) Films with an all-Italian crew.

This film is in the second section.

Ferzan is an incredibly good director and storyteller...

He painted a magnificent 70s Italy and both the background and jukebox music represent both the period and the spirit of the film well.

In 2023, I hope Netflix Italy will continue to surprise us with the second Ferzan Ozpetek film.

The film highlights an interesting point with its scenario that focuses on two men who meet and fall in love in 1970s Rome and spend the next 30 years looking for each other.

It is an interesting detail that the entire world lives in the same feelings between the 1940s and the eighties...

They dressed similarly, watched similar films, fell in love with similar songs and experienced similar political movements.

Sociologists should study this.

In this context, Italy, especially in the background of the first half of the film, will not be foreign to many people.