C.How do you explain Livorno? With its port soul, generous but cutting edge, with the always ready joke and the enormous and constant desire for the sea? Paolo Virzì he did it masterfully in Ovosodo1997 film just added in the Netflix catalog. Which still today we never tire of looking at and which describes the colorful and working-class soul of the Tuscan city.
For Paolo Virzì Ovosodo it was a kind of consecration, complete with Silver Lion for Directionand for Nicoletta Braschi (Professor Giovanna) a David for Best Supporting Actress.
25 years of Ovosodo
The film is a dive into a slice of life that today seems almost elusivebut maybe it’s not that bad.
The story unfolds through the eyes and words of the legendary Piero Mansaniplayed by the rookie Edoardo Gabbriellini – which is a kind of guide to the city, to its spirit and its contradictionsalso told through the characters embodied by two other Tuscan actors (at the time at the very beginning): Marco Cocci and Paolo Ruffini.
Marco Cocci and Edoardo Gabbriellini. (Ipa)
At the base of the story the gap between social classesvery often raw, as well as the representation of disparities, of means and culturesamong the various souls of the city: that popular and working class from which Piero and that comes upper class and a bit dull where Tommaso Palladini (Marco Cocci) and Nicola Gargani (Paolo Ruffini) grew up. How to forget phrases like «One more subjunctive and you were stamped forever like fennel“.
Why concern Ovosodo
First of all, because it represents a cross-section of Italianness, indeed of Tuscany, of the nineties. Period from which the pop culture still continues to draw heavilyand then because through the sharp comedy that distinguishes his films, Virzì despite everything wants to send a message of hope.
Then because the director does not discount: Paolo, the protagonist, was born in a disadvantaged cultural and social contextand despite his efforts and skills – in school he is considered a genius and makes money by selling homework to peers – eventually he is unable to abandon the working-class condition from which he comes and in which he grew up.
Ovosodo thus turns out to be one bitter comedy critique of social mechanismsand at the same an exaltation of the simple life in which you try to get the best of what you have. “Who knows, maybe I’m completely heartened, or maybe I’m happy … apart from that kind of hard egg insidewhich goes neither up nor down, but now keeps me company like an old friend ».
Paolo Virzì with his wife Micaela Ramazzotti.
The title refers to a popular district of Livorno, but also to the inner state of the protagonistwho has a constant lump in his throat, life did not go as he might have wanted, but he found the joint to be happy with his partner, the neighbor Susy (Claudia Pandolfi) and the son they had together.
What has changed in society in these twenty-five years? Perhaps not so much and the disparities, exacerbated by the pandemic, make this film probably still very relevant.
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