Written and directed by Giovanni Tortorici, Leonardo, a 19-year-old student, leaves his hometown of Palermo to study economics in London. He soon grows restless and enrols at the University of Siena to study literature. Starring: Manfredi Marini, Vittoria Planeta, Dana Giuliano, Zackari Delmas and Luca Lazzareschi.
When you think of all the problems that might arise from making a film that feels like an accurate depiction in the life of a bookish, 19-year-old in 2015, you’ll find most of them in Diciannove. To its credit, there are some interesting underlying layers to this story and Leonardo’s (Manfredi Marini) relationship with his family, sexuality and mental health but none of them are explored more than the surface layers. Instead, the story moves like a collection of initial thoughts that never develop, which is actually quite appropriate given its young, male perspective.
All of that is then not helped by Giovanni Tortorici’s directorial style, it can feel dispassionate and meandering, but strangely it can also be haphazard and as if it wants to evoke the energy of a music video. There are a lot of nonsensical transitions and while the styles being used do feel like they’re paying homage to other filmmakers, they don’t all blend together well. The film struggles to build an atmosphere and to make a genuine impression, there also isn’t a great deal of personality at work.
Another part of the problem is its leading character, Leonardo is a vastly uninteresting character. He’s a slightly shy but arrogant young man who can somehow seem both passionate and ceaselessly bored at the same time. It’s no fault of Manfredi Marini, you can sense that he has more to give, if he had freer rein but there isn’t much for his character to do. He’s spending so much time with books and has an over-estimation of his own intelligence, that most of his story is a misguided passion. He has a strange mix of being ardently committed to it but simultaneously feeling resentful of it. The result is something rather uninspired and listless, a young man who likes to think he’s making a sincere effort, while doing fairly little work.
Diciannove sadly doesn’t have much to offer. It can come across as though there were a lot of initial ideas but none of them considered the bigger picture, ultimately feeling like they’ve been thrown together. It’s one of the rare occasions where matching the style of the film to the personality of the leading character sets the film at a disadvantage. That’s because Leonardo is a fairly boring 19-year-old, there’s little unique about him and he isn’t set down a particularly interesting path. A lot of the time, Giovanni Tortorici’s directorial style feels as though it’s taking from other filmmakers and trying to force it into the mould for this film, and they simply don’t fit and feel forced.
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