Youth (2015)

I thoroughly enjoyed this ironically titled, beautifully photographed and scored, dreamy meditation on age, about a retired composer/conductor, an aging film director, and some other people in a resort in the Swiss alps. Michael Caine (last blogged for Kingsmen: The Secret Service) and Harvey Keitel (most recently in The Congress) have a lovely camaraderie as the old friends. Rachel Weisz (last in Oz the Great and Powerful) is great as Caine's daughter and manager, Paul Dano (most recently in Love & Mercy) is wonderfully thoughtful as a young actor hanging out getting notes for his next role, and Jane Fonda (last in This Is Where I Leave You) has a terrific Golden-Globe-nominated scene that's about ten minutes long (her only appearance) about two-thirds through the movie.

One of the interesting trivia notes is that the actress playing Miss Universe was 26 at the time of shooting and her character is supposed to symbolize youth, but 26 is the age of the oldest ever winner of Miss Universe (American winner Brook Lee in 1997).

I didn't mention the name of director/writer Paolo Sorrentino when I wrote up his last picture, The Great Beauty, and this has much in common with that. Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi was, however, blogged in Certified Copy five years ago. Most of the movie was, in fact, shot in Switzerland.

David Lang, who won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for The Little Match Girl Passion (listen here) provides marvelous music, especially the twelve+ minute vocal trio over the closing credits. I'm happy to have found it, entitled Just (After Song of Songs), to hear on youtube and a link to purchase it as a single. There are other songs on the soundtrack, not all of them classical. 

Best seen on a big screen, it's not for the impatient. The rest of us will be rewarded well beyond the mid-70s averages of Rotten Tomatoes.