“40 seconds” by Vincenzo Alfieri, in cinemas from November 19th, will hardly be displaced by anyone as the symbolic film of this edition of the Rome Film Festival, at least as far as Italian cinema is concerned. Italian cinema, which is navigating in very bad waters from many points of view, finds a work capable of being civil cinema, an educational film, a social fresco, in a simply magnificent, very powerful way.

“40 seconds” – The plot

The first thing that comes to mind, after seeing “40 seconds”, is that it is not normal that a film of this caliber, of this quality, has not been selected for major stages. Nothing against the Rome Film Festival, on the contrary, but seeing what Italy has sent to the Biennale this year and above all the scarcity of our presence in Cannes, well, you’ll have to eat your hands, even your arms.

Willy Montero, those 40 seconds that cost him his life in Colleferro in September 2020, at the hands of the brothers Gabriele and Marco Bianchi, we all remember, was a shocking news story. Vincenzo Alfieri produces his best film, the most mature, most modern, most intriguing, a breath of truth, freshness and courage in a panorama, the Italian one, which has for some time been giving worrying signals, not to say worse. “40 seconds” is exactly what we should offer to the world, it is that type of cinema that we must help, push, because it has a quality of direction, screenplay, vision and interpretations that haven’t been seen in a long, long time.

Vincenzo Alfieri divides the film into episodes, each dedicated to a character from that story, but more specifically from that world, that existential swamp of Colleferro, where Willy Monteiro (Justin De Vivo) dreams of becoming a great chef, of changing his life.

Those 40 seconds that cost him his life, however, do not arrive by chance, they are the product of that forgotten, ruined, ignorant and closed Province, of a human fauna whose natural predators are brothers Marco (Luca Petrini) and Gabriele (Giordano Giansanti). Vincenzo Alfieri does not make the mistake of stopping at that fact, however, of making it the center. No sir, for him what matters is that we understand the existential, cultural and social dimension that produced them.

Colleferro is a black hole that swallows up hopes, families, youth, nothing happens, ever, in that nothingness it is easy for anything to happen. “40 seconds” is a journey into a burned out youth, caged in a tribal world, which does not allow anyone to go off certain tracks, from that invisible, archaic, patriarchal and macho prison. That’s what killed Willy, the place he was born.

A perfect film because it is capable of explaining to us the origin of everything

Willy actually only appears at the end, before we meet Cosimo (Enrico Borello, absurd talent) and Maurizio (Francesco Gheghi). The first is a lackey of the two White Brothers, a manipulative, charismatic, cunning and at the same time stupid little handyman. He keeps Maurizio in his pocket, insecure, alone, just dumped by his girlfriend, but much less harmless than he seems.

Then here is the crowd of friends, acquaintances, colleagues and Willy’s family, the girls who dream of leaving like Michelle (Beatrice Puccilli), because they know that there, for better or worse, it will always be the same story, same place, same bar. The direction of the actors by Vincenzo Alfieri is admirable, you never, not even once, have the impression of being inside a fiction, also by virtue of a tight, very tight, dynamic direction, which allows Alfieri and Giuseppe Stasi’s screenplay to develop every potential freely. Andrea Reitano’s photography adds a semi-documentary tone to the whole, which however is never cold, detached, never devoid of a human warmth that exudes from every shot, every dialogue.

Talking to us about youth has always been a difficult, indeed difficult, task for every director. “40 seconds” in the end becomes a unique journey because it is able to make us understand how and why we failed, we made mistakes, because this country does not deserve any of the energy of this generation. Maurizio Lombardi and Sergio Rubini are the two important additions to the film, placed at the right time, in the right place, together with Francesco Di Leva, whose inability to act or almost act in the role of a Marshal is not at all accidental.

The death of Willy Monteiro is the natural consequence of the inaction of the State, of the institutions, of the school but above all of society. Alfieri shows us the consumerist and ignorant creed that produced two boys like the Whites, but also the logic of the herd, the backwardness of ways, the provinciality of the suburbs, small archaic kingdoms, where girls become property or pastime.

“40 seconds” in the simplicity of its message, in the fluidity of its whole, is the demonstration that talent and potential still exist in our cinema, perhaps it is time that someone higher up realizes it.

Rating: 9