Youth

Fred Ballinger is a well-known composer in the mature years of his life. He has seen love from the very edge of his being, scored music that has transcended and is living out the last years in peace and relaxation. On the other side of this coin is the failures, he has a daughter who is about to divorce, his work is only remembered for its dull pieces and life is greatly more joyless than expected.

I have to admit I never really got Sorrentino. I never got his absurd and surreal world of tragic heroes. Males going through the embers of a life filled with fire and passion. That was until I saw Youth and from is opening scene of a delightful rendition of Candi Statons ‘You’ve Got the Love’ up to the glorious orchestra of cow bells. Through the addition of the oddly sexual Paloma Faith, the passive aggressive whale body of Diego Maradona and then the majestic and amazingly stunning Jane Fonda. I like films that dwell on the way our world is so silly, so comically abstract and so, so much about wanting more and always getting less.

Youth sings with the joyful despair of the person reflecting on what has come before and what it all means. Caine is the centre of this and his performance is both magnetic and contained. He is the man at the final corridor and yet he sees the world as a place that is magical and filled with life. fractured of course with the failure of being known for work he doesnt want to remember and the problem of the younger self. Keitel is also on great form as a film maker who wants to make that eternal statement. A final film that might just be the one he has searched for since time began. He adds comedy with a great sense of timing.

My only downside to this joyful celebration is that (and this is my opinion), Sorrentino has the touch of the male gaze about his work. Beauty is to be held and we must capture it but sometimes i feel he takes it and makes it become an object of desire. This distorts the female into being an object to want and not as an equal. Bar that the film is amazing, intellengent, idiosyncratic and hilariously truth with a sprinkle of the bitter sweet.