A best-selling Italian novel about two bright, fiercely lonely misfits caught in a strange, life-long pas de deux is now a strange, fiercely unconventional love story – and a dazzling work of pure cinema. Starring Alba Rohrwacher (I Am Love).
Troubling, complex and compelling... a wonderful portrait of differences.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2011
The Solitude of Prime Numbers 2010
La solitudine dei numeri primi
Alice, a photographer, was a golden child tailored for perfection by her ambitious parents until a ski accident left her with a limp and an enduring sense of disgrace. Mattia is a mathematical prodigy, marginalised at an early age by the responsibility he’s given for his mentally challenged sister. Director Saverio Constanzo cuts back and forth through their intermittently overlapping lives from childhood into their 40s to create a dazzling mosaic of the crucial incidents, most of which occur, tellingly, around crowded, vividly orchestrated parties – a kid’s birthday, a house party, a wedding. Luca Marinelli and Alba Rohrwacher (I Am Love) astound as the adult Mattia and Alice, even taking on the radical weight changes of their tragically self-dividing characters. — BG