Cannes review: ‘Forever Young’ by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

If you are the parent of a child who thinks he is acting, there is nothing more frightening than watching Forever Young (The Amandiers).

The all-too-true look of Valeria Bruni Tedeski on the young members of the legendary theatrical staging Visa Patrice Cherro in the 80s is a parade of extreme order that underlines and encourages boundless narcissism, selfishness, censorship. Drug use and self-destructive behavior that would make a sex gun jealous.

This Cannes Competition record is a deep dive into the all-encompassing art lifestyle that encourages, no, insists on arrogance and irresponsibility and hell about everything else. Performing arts fans of the past four decades might be interested in seeing it, but it’s still tough.

The process begins with a very intense audit scene, where applicants are directly asked: “Why do you want to take action? Very quickly, the answer becomes clear, even if it’s not explicitly stated: it’s because they want attention, need approval, and have emotional needs that can only be fueled by people who feel important. And most importantly, they just want to be loved.

As part of the process, actors must learn how to attract people and force them to watch, which often requires observers to deal with different behavioral extremes. Everything is fine, as long as you get the attention you want and, above all, make people pay for the privilege, see the charisma and the ability to transform everyday life into something special.

The competition, of course, is intense, and the film captures the pain and emotion felt by those struggling for positions in the company. Also, to be honest, it’s a bit confusing because the director cuts so fast and he’s so close to the bone that he leaves nothing that resembles normal narrative coherence; You basically get the gist of what’s going on, but you can forget about any of the usual storytelling features; This is a movie that doesn’t care about character development and story as it normally works.

In all cases, the 40 contenders will end up coming out of the chosen top ten and, in short, from the group tour in Lower Manhattan, near the Public Theater. In any case, here the self-centeredness of the heroes has increased and the most self-centered of them wastes no time finding the drugs he craves and turning them into a fluffy mess.

The work selected for them is a lesser-known work by Chekhov. PlatonovBut it pales in comparison to the characters’ total absorption, which becomes exhausting when everyone suddenly returns to Paris. AIDS tragically enters the picture at this point, but the main aspect of the film is the degree of truly absolute narcissism these people experience and which they have little reason to justify. This element alone makes the film a great closure.

Though cut to the bone, the film is still all too welcome as too much can be said about the characters’ dramatized self-esteem. Show people what they called them, they usually enjoy hanging around at least sometimes, but these narcissists get in the way.