"There will always be the son of a shopkeeper, an innkeeper, a poor guy who only had the chance to marry a rich woman."
These words, the both murderers and hypocrites, hypocrites since they are known in the back of the person to whom they are intended, out of the mouth of the stepmother of Romano Patroni, the hero of the beautiful film by Nikita Mikhalkov. The old woman was intended for her daughter Elisa and as always, before delivering his verdict, she had posed the following question: how she, a Salghetti, only daughter of a wealthy Roman banker, had been married to this Romano, the man who, in addition to marrying penniless, had the nerve to ape the herons in beautiful gardens of the homestead, which stain well with this wildlife can no longer be distinguished one called every holiday? And as always, Elisa had answered the eternal surprise of his mother with a smile, a smile that the latter, the time had come to accept and even return it, because she could read the confession of a mistake committed in the name of the Youth free, romantic and carefree: "You know how it goes, night walks, secret rendezvous. We were young. We thought our dreams were enough. " Romano looks at the very beginning of the film to Pavel Alexeyev, the Russian national to whom he would entrust his life, and indeed it is these words, these words, that Elisa was passing in her smile every time that it had given birth asked about the disastrous choice of her husband.
But Elisa was mistaken, as she deceived her mother too, and it could well follow the path of long double lie if an event, a bad investment on the stock exchange, had not endangered the vast family fortune, one for which she had fought and sacrificed after the death of his father, for abandoning the balance sheets and other celebrations of the same type all that his younger years had placed in his soul, that still would say that in Romano that the sweet comforts of life, the pleasure of getting up late or have nice clothes inevitably kill anything that carries within itself, including freedom and love. With this setback, the complete bankruptcy, yes, Elisa would realize that she had nothing more to it, not even a dream, and succeed his father had irretrievably away from her husband, the husband she had loved and buried under the largely positive figures of his many bank accounts.
Certainly, this woman would never own mistress be passed through his life, having the wrong road, but how can we not understand that after bankruptcy it would make the bitter observation, when in this great scene, one of the most beautiful in the film, Nikita Mikhalkov has been painfully watching a couple of young children holding hand a kite, a kite up there as free floating in the air she had herself been in life before the work of the money does come finally nail it to the ground and running in an alley, to be both right and suffused with light at its end, evokes the arrow on the right path to follow, that of freedom of action and the freshness of feeling, the very man she had once borrowed that , not to lose it all, she should have continued to pursue, then slowly pass through and exit the screen, head slightly bowed, as if his intention had been to say that the viewer for his heroine Mass was said, and even definitively known.
Romano is a poor guy who only had the chance to marry a rich woman. " say so Elisa's mother of his son. And it did not really wrong to use the word opportunity rather than another. On the one hand, because if he had not been so lucky then, that chance had made him give up his great project planning, the guy is an architect by training and, like everyone else, had been a his teeth terribly long time, the point of rest he could accept that her parents to the four veins bleed to fund all of his studies, for comfort and luxury of a quiet life as a husband maintained, it would surely become the equal detestable all these people of fortune, each holiday, crowded the beautiful gardens of the homestead, people with money and taste for the business had dried up the heart: "I do not like music because it is useless! " admit one of them, people with manners so stilted and if it affected he had come to mock the idea of imitating the gestures a little mechanical herons moving. And other, because after all there was only luck or its inverse, or an event that does not depend on him, who were advancing Romano in his life. In other words, if he was returned to the land of dreams and inertia, it was only by the will of others. In this he was also a prisoner of its status as an incorrigible dreamer that Elisa had long been its function as a businesswoman. And it's very good, because very few people can boast of having chosen their life completely.
This way of being that way through life as an eternal ideals and loving boy who would at the same time unable to make a decision or to evade the authority of the strongest, and because, for the habit of saying yes to the immense fortune of his wife he could not say no to anyone and that, although he had very often feel like a woman was painfully pay the price.
This woman called Anna Sergeyevna and our heroes meet her during a stay cure. For this man who spent most of his time building castles in the land on which he had formerly trampled, Anna, with her white veil, his candor and his manner at once delicate and rebels in the small world of pinched herons seemed to appear as a possible sequel to the sublime love story that would not end if known Elisa, who was the beloved co-author, had not been hijacked by evil money matters . For this woman who wanted one thing, the closing as quickly as possible this bad book she was writing in the company a man who knew nothing of love, nor she for that matter, to be part of the small world too mechanical and soulless herons, Romano, romantic she saw as she was herself Similarly, Romano, private ship that browser but it just as eager to sail again, seemed like falling from heaven, a heaven finally well disposed towards him.
course, to hold as much hope of happiness, the first head-to-head, obviously caused by Anna as always had to Romano that the event make the first move, would not be wait, disappointment and tears of Anna, for that matter, because, after all, if she could quickly imagine that with his lack of fortune and his moral sense could not copy it so easy to be disunited who had bought his family for a few rubles, it would not much time to understand that Romano had never the courage to follow up their story. Like Tina, the most faithful friend of Romano, like all women, incidentally, seems to say the Russian director Anna could indeed play in the souls of loved ones, and that of Romano, she saw written in large, words like inconsistency, irresponsible, flippant, capitulation, a list of words in fact expressing the opposite of what she expected of him. And the rest, to read in this spirit as we read in a book, she had also rescued a question that bothered her terribly, and this question was: he just loved him for it or anything else? Damn!, The joy he had felt when, at his request she had said "sabatchka" she had been lit by an adult love? Consonance with its cute and childish, this little dog in Russian, as source of delight for him, rather he spoke of a very young boy carries his mother. Or maybe it was not she say what he meant "sabatchka" but Russia as a whole!
From nothingness of his life in St. Petersburg Anna therefore came, and after the big bang of the spa which was eventually produced for a brief moment it light, this woman would go back to the nothingness of his Life of Saint Petersburg. While Romano undertake a journey to find her, "I could see his eyes. I felt its fragrance. I thought of pierced his gloves, his hair on his neck, as fine as the down of a chick, " like yours, my dear, it seems, deceived by the lack, but thousands of kilometers, have been swallowed by a man who apes this time the hero of a surreal adventure story, the kind you read in adolescence, could only lead to tears which had already sunk. Closed to anything that does not fall within the scope of his dreams, tight everything they could otherwise be cut off from any non-idealized world, an attitude that goes Nikita Mikhalkov, in my view, metaphorize nicely with an unbreakable glass, Romano would not even Anna's eyes tell him that because of his immaturity and his taste for inaction they never meet again. His eyes are so like teeth to eat it raw.
"Every day of my life has been like a bad copy of a draft. Ive had everything and nothing. I have no recollection. If I should die instantly and that the Lord was asking me what memories do you have in your life? I would reply that I sang the lullaby my mother, very small, the face of Elisa, the first night and fog Russia. " seems Romano, five minutes before the beautiful film by Nikita Mikhalkov is not completed, Pavel Alexeyev, the Russian national to whom he had just finished telling his life. Then he would weep, not this time kid, but man, adult, because he understood, finally!, Thanks to his confidant, who was his exact opposite to be made to any one he liked - a dedication which led him to achieve the impossible - its lightness, detachment, disengagement from life, and even his selfishness.
However, when I read the review Romano draws from his life, what a performer Romano Marcello Mastroianni here absolutely "ghinial!" I tend to say he had plenty to console themselves. Dammit! He had received two loves every human being should, in my view, receive, and he had ignored him of course, a beautiful soul, basically that of true poets, because like them he spleen whenever Ideally teased him.
Ah! see the mists of Russia and not ever come back ...
Ah! see the mists of Russia and not ever come back ...
