A Bitter Ending to a Hard-Lived Life

A review on The City of the Living, Directed by Edoardo Gabbriellini

Armin Ebrahimi

The film La città dei vivi, from its very first sequence — from its very first shot — takes us straight into a world of real, deep pain. Three infants in an orphanage are held up by three nurses so that a man and a woman can choose one of them to adopt. The film tells the story of one of these three orphans, yet it is a bitter, scathing work filled with regret for the loss of beauty and youth. The director uses the city of Rome only to the extent the story’s needs and capacities require, and his gaze upon the city is so focused, precise, and unhurried that from the outset we accept the city as a character in its own right — a character referenced repeatedly across different shots: through the reflections of streets on bus windows, through nocturnal long shots, through the names of stations and neighborhoods. The performances are precise, the cinematography thoughtfully composed, the rhythm of events exactly right; in short, everything is in its proper place. The film is bitter, yet it is so well made, so honest, that it holds us until the end. One of the best films in the Horizons section so far — and today is only the fourth day.