My husband Renato and I are passionate about Gianni Di Gregorio, director and actor, and we have watched and loved all of his films. We often told ourselves that we would like to meet him, but we didn’t know how this could happen, since knowing more about him it was not possible. In fact, doing research on social networks, there is no trace of Gianni Di Gregorio: absent. Perhaps one of the very few famous people to live without the obsession of appearingshy and detached (not out of snobbery), practically an alien. Then all that remained was to imagine being able to cross him by chance in some alley, maybe in Trasteverewhere we would not then have had the courage to bother him.
But this lucky opportunity presented itself when I discovered that he would be present before a screening of Astolfohis latest work, these days in theaters, after the presentation at Rome Film Festival. And so I brought his copy with me Far far, a triptych of short stories the third of which, which gives the book its title, is the one that tells the story of the film of the same name. In reality, the plot was traced, albeit in embryo, already in the story Poorly to livepublished in 2015 in the anthology Stories from the Eternal City.
Unexpectedly, we saw it at the entrance to the cinema, stopped with someone like me who wanted an autograph and a photo. So I finally had the opportunity to observe and listen to him closely, asking him a few awkward questions for fear of disturbing his evident calm with my exuberance. I asked him a dedication and asked about his affections, curious whether or not he had a family. I’ve always imagined him alone, perhaps because he is one with his characters who, despite being different and immersed in different stories, have a common thread that somehow unites them and brings everyone together.
This is probably due to what Di Gregorio transfers there, drawing from his personality and character. It is his humanity in the characters that he plays with absolute naturalness, transforming excellent qualities such as candour, ingenuity, purity, grace, sensitivity, goodness, into elements transgressive because they are unusual, I would say almost unknown by now, both in real life and in its film adaptation. Di Gregorio is light, he recites, writes, lives, with kindness and education. And the other co-stars are also in line, never being over the top, even when they indulge in goliardic jokes, which never border on vulgarity.
The dialogues result spontaneoussimple things of everyday life that take on poetic, dreamy and sometimes surreal features. The value of friendship and solidarity they are always present, just as more than once there is a son struggling with his mother.
This last film, which he defined as his most cheerful, is poetry, grace, delicacy, irony, lightness. For the first time the setting moves from Rome to the province, in a small town in central Italy, a village of which he sketches a pleasant and at times bitter portrait. For the subjects and for the literary style, I find some affinities with Piero Chiara, whose novels are set in the northern Italian province. Small worlds investigated with acumen and depth together with the vices and virtues of its inhabitants, a microcosm home to tiny extraordinary amazing events.
Astolfo elicits a lot of laughter but one catches, as in Di Gregorio’s other films, a veil of melancholy and a subtle attention to discomfort caused by loneliness.
It is a more romantic film than the previous ones, the sentimental component being prevalent. The tender love story that blossoms between the two protagonists who are already of a certain age is pervaded by shyness and modesty. It is a victory for the good guys, for those who feel a little wonder at the enchantment of clean feelings. Di Gregorio manages to make films no nudity, without forcing, without effects, without looking for spectacularity. Nonetheless, Stefania Sandrelli does not hide, in any frame in which she is present, the enchanting seductiveness of her laughter and her endless elegant beauty, unchanged since Divorzio all’Italiana when, little more than adolescent and unripe, she it was already huge.
The two refined cinematic quotes have not escaped my attention: one of the highlights of Breakfast at Tiffany’swhich Stefania looks at with a hint of emotion after a day spent being a grandmother, and an old black and white Italian film (I think De Sica, I can’t say for sure because of the quick framing) while Astolfo and Stefania on the sofa, very awkward and at a safe distance, conclude the their first night out.
A triumph on all fronts, including a good tourist launch for the village of Artena.
In conclusion: Di Gregorio is the neighbor we would like to have, for the pleasure of meeting him on the stairs, greeting him, asking him how he’s doing, and receiving one of his serene and pleasant smiles while listening to his composed, measured and pleasant speech.