Lto denthe first work of Umbrian director Beatrice Baldacci successfully presented at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, it airs tonight at 9.15pm on Rai 5. It is a coming of age with thriller nuances starring two very young people discovering love and themselves. Set in the green and fairy-tale Roman countryside, it is an absolutely original film in the Italian cinema scene.
The denthe plot
Giulio (Lorenzo Aloi) is a sensitive, shy and somewhat naive 18-year-oldwho decides to give up a trip with friends during the summer for give a hand to his parents in the countryside (Elisa Di Eusanio and Paolo Ricci).
One day, notice that in the long-vacant farmhouse near their property it seems that someone has returned to live there. Investigating, he discovers that it is Lia (Irene Vetere) who occupied it, daughter of the owners, an optimistic, reserved, but at the same time casual and determined girl. As expected he ends up falling madly in love with her.
Lia reciprocates, and a complicit and intense relationship is born between the two. Even though Giulio just can’t understand why Lia doesn’t allow anyone to enter the house. In fact, the girl always remains vague when she talks about herself: she would only be there to spend the summer in the old family house, where she hadn’t returned since childhood. The key to the mystery, however, is another, and it has to do with the girl’s mother.
An enveloping and unconventional first work
Directed by newcomer Beatrice Baldacci, The den it’s a film like in Italy, unfortunately, few are seen, far from trends and clichés. A work almost sensorial, fusion of suspense and psychological drama.
With dialogues reduced to the bare bones, focuses especially on the power of the imageleaving the task of revealing to the shots the mystery surrounding Lia. Alternating the point of view of the two young people, The den it then has the power to immerse the viewer in a bucolic context made of colours, silences and sounds which is very reminiscent of the poetic cinema of Terrence Malick and many French films from the 1980s. Particularly those of Eric Rohmer.
Irene Vetere in a scene from “La tana”. (Lumen Films)
Thanks to the contribution of Irene Vetere e Lorenzo Aloi – many good ones and with an out of the ordinary expressiveness –, the film proceeds hypnotic and enveloping until a surprising conclusion which it would be a shame to reveal. It is certainly not free from some writing defects, like almost all first works a personal film by an author to keep an eye on.
The cast: Irene Vetere and Lorenzo Aloi
Launched by Paolo Virzì in 2018 with Magic Nights – set during the 1990 Italian World Cup –, with a handful of films Irene became a sought-after interpreter.
Former junior taekwondo championalternates acting with painting, although in recent months he has temporarily left acting aside for graduate in architecture. Of Lia’s role in he confided to Wild Trails That “The more I came into contact with Lia, the more I realized a similar matrix between the two of us. Then it is true that the external expressions are different. Lia is so decisive and extreme in some things. She has ways of acting that aren’t mine. But over time I realized that I didn’t understand anything at first. Is that I really could see myself in her».
Lorenzo Aloi, Tuscan actor discovered by Edoardo Leo in the film Leave yourself a day in Romeinstead has two films highly anticipated titles coming soon. The first is the series with a historical setting PDN by Daniele Luchetti – while the second is You are in the soul, biopic on Gianna Nannini on Netflix next May.
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