Epic from the small screen

If the great Roberto Rossellini were alive today, it is more than probable that he would be rooting for The Best of Youth just as he did for the Taviani brothers' 1977 film, Padre Padrone, now a classic. It is that good.

Originally made for television, it stretches over six hours and encompasses the life and times of an Italian family from the student riots of 1966 to the Berlusconi era of 2003. Such is its historical sweep and its ability to project the intimacy of relationships, that the hours fly by.

Marco Tullio Giordana's film, now shown in the cinema with an interval halfway through, has two brothers at its centre: one a Left-leaning psychiatrist, the other who joins first the army and then the police.

They are fighting on opposite sides and we are left in no doubt as to which one Giordana takes. This is, in a very real sense, a saga about how political, social and cultural events shape individuals, whether they like it or not. It is also about lost ideals and old certainties destroyed by circumstances.

What makes it so good is the deft, powerful direction and acting - especially from Luigi Lo Cascio as the psychiatrist - both intensely natural and sure. That, and the way the drama of some of the most tumultuous years in Italian history weaves in and out of the personal stories.

The film is not without flaws. Most concern its second half and Giordana's attempt to prove that contact with nature is the way to self-discovery. Even so, the achievement is stunning, not simply because it is unexpected but because, made for television or not, this is very special film-making.

It could justly be called the Italian Heimat. Anyone who loved that 1984 German epic need have no fear about about the length of this. Feel the breadth.

The Best Of Youth (La Meglio Gioventu): Part I
Cert: cert15