. Full of fantastical touches transposing the magical spirit){kind=link}
Opening the Orizzonti competition at this year’s Venice International Film Festival is the delightfully bittersweet confection Nonostante, the second feature from Italian director Valerio Mastandrea (Ride). Full of fantastical touches transposing the magical spirit of Miyazaki to the real world, Nonostante is a paean to finding joy in the present and opening yourself up to the vulnerability of love.
Doing double duty, Mastandrea also stars as the film’s unnamed protagonist (let’s call him Lui), who we soon learn is living like a kind of ghost in the liminal space between life and death as his body lies comatose in the very stylish Italian hospital he calls home. When we first meet Lui, he seems to be having the time of his very unusual life. Free of the weight of life’s usual responsibilities, he relishes in living in the moment: racing schoolchildren at the local track, photobombing tourists, indulging in carpool singalongs – he genuinely seems to have cracked the code to enduring happiness.
Notably, Lui’s world is governed by a set of esoteric rules: the comatose can talk to each other but no one in the conscious world; they can physically interact with objects, which allows them to hitch a ride every once in a while; and when they wake up, they won’t remember anything of their life (or friends) in the in between. A consummate optimist, Lui does his best to push the limits of the rules to his advantage and ignore the ones he doesn’t like.
One day, his joyful life is disrupted as his body is unceremoniously moved to make space for a new arrival: a beautiful young woman who proves less than thrilled at her fate – we’ll call her Lei (Dolores Fonzi). Passionately obstinate and resistant to her fate, she immediately butts heads with Lui, which can only mean one thing. They’re destined to fall in love. Tentatively, they circle each other, but quickly surrender to their feelings. Lui, though, seems frightened by his growing affections, and we feel his lightness start to leave him as he anchors his heart to hers.
Soon enough, a dear friend wakes from their coma, and Lei is puzzled at Lui’s sadness. Shouldn’t he be thrilled that his friend has recovered and can get back to their real life? But Lui explains that he’ll now be forgotten, left behind like he never existed. Lei doesn’t understand. What’s the tragedy in forgetting? He confesses he can’t bear the thought that she might one day forget him. All he wants now is to stay there together forever in their newfound happiness. Overwhelmed by his admission and the prospect of being stuck in the in between indefinitely, she runs away.
Finding herself at the impound lot, looking over the smashed remains of the car that left her stranded in this existential limbo, she meets an older man on a similar mission. He warns her not to fall into the same trap of obsession with the past and the prospect of returning to the other side. Better to accept her fate and reap whatever happiness she can in the framework of her current existence. Inspired by his words, she rushes back to Lui to confess her love, ready to giver herself over to a strange and beautiful present they can create together, no matter how short-lived it might prove to be.
Eventually, their realities catch up to them, in different but equally heartbreaking ways, all beautifully realized by Mastandrea. I won’t give away the ending, except to say that the film’s final moments contain one of the most magical sequences I’ve seen on screen this year. Besides, the ending of this story isn’t really the point. The journey is the point.
At its core, this is a story about the inherent vulnerability of love, and the battle to find joy in the face of inevitable loss. A work of delicate sweetness and melancholy, the film is kept from becoming too saccharine by its pleasantly snarky tone and the realistically realized internal conflicts of its core characters. Nonostantewill bring a smile to your face even as he breaks your heart.
Nonostante premieres in the Orizzonti programme at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.
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