L'Ultimo Bacio
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Country: Italy
Year: 2001
Runtime: 115 minutes
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Awards: David di Donatello Awards - Best Director/Best Editing/Best Producer/Best Sound/Best Supporting Actress, Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists - Silver Ribbon Best Editing, Best Song/Best Supporting Actress, Newport International Film Festival - Jury Award Best Actor, Sundance Film Festival - Audience Award
This Italian take on the thirty-something generation is at the same time universal and also uniquely Italian. Perhaps nowhere else in the Western world are men so unrepentantly vain--encouraged to be so by the women around them. Fellini referred to young Italian males as I vitelloni, that is, young calves. In Gabriele Muccino’s more contemporary film the results are more bittersweet and hilarious. The lives of Carlo, Adriano, Paolo, Alberto, and Marco crisscross in a complex pattern of misadventures and lyrical romances. The men are totally unprepared to find that the women in their lives have been quietly self-liberated and not about to take any more guff. Beyond the thirty-somethings, Muccino focuses his keen eye on Anna’s mother’s Stella, a fifty-something played to perfection by former sexual icon Stefania Sandrelli. The fear of aging hits equally those in their 30’s and 50’s. Stella will make you laugh as you wipe away a furtive tear. From the day of its initial release in Italy until its first television showing a year later, THE LAST KISS dominated discussions of “The New Italian Cinema” in the Italian press. Winner of numerous prizes and awards at film festivals worldwide, including Best Foreign Film at the Sundance Film Festival. ~ Nick Salerno
Principal Cast: Stefano Accorsi, Giovana Mezzogiorno, Stefania Sandrelli, Martina Stella, Claudio Santamaria, Giorgio Pasotti, Pierfrancesco Favino
Writer: Gabriele Muccino
Producer: Domenico Procacci
Cinematographer: Marcello Montarsi
Film Editor: Claudio Di Mauro