Paolo Genovese published the novel The First Day of My Life five years ago, a story of second chances starring four people -two women, a man and a child- who are hitting rock bottom and are summoned by a mysterious character who offers them a deal : a week for them to find meaning in their lives again.
The Italian writer and filmmaker had shot many scenes from the book in his imagination and now that story has become a film with a cast including Toni Servillo, Margherita Buy and Valerio Mastandrea who competed in April at the BCN Film Fest and landed this Friday July 7 on the Spanish summer billboard. “I wanted to share with the public this work that underlines the possibility of starting over after having hit rock bottom. I wanted to talk about a taboo, suicide, and I asked myself why we got to such extreme situations and if it depended on us ourselves or our environment. But for me it was important to emphasize the fact that we can all start over again”, comments the director of Perfect Strangers, one of the great successes of Italian cinema in recent years.
If the novel was set in New York, for the film Genovese wanted to transfer the action to Rome, where we will meet Napoleone, Arianna, Emilia and little Daniele on a rainy night. They all run into Servillo’s character, who takes them by car to a hotel and for a week in which nobody can see them, he will make them attend their own funeral and see their future if they decide to change course.
“These four characters represent four discomforts of our current society. The adolescent who does not have the tools to manage everything that comes with social networks; the gymnast who represents not feeling up to the task because she feels the pressure of always being the first, the one that has to win and is constantly competitive; depression, which is the disease of today in which we do not understand the meaning of life, and mourning, which usually happens to all of us,” he points out.
And around them, the character of Servillo, “a metaphor for anyone who can come into our lives to save us. The idea is to let the public interpret him as a friend, a relative, a stranger or an angel.” For Genovese, the actor represents “the authority, credibility, sweetness and empathy that the role required.”
And he is also in fiction the most similar to Napoleone (Mastandrea), a man who worked as a motivator and is plunged into a deep depression of which he does not know the cause. “He knew how to save people,” says his wife during the massive funeral. He, on the other hand, can’t handle his soul and it’s the one who finds it hardest to get out of the well after having a new opportunity. He doesn’t want to be saved.
Tommaso, one of the characters who appear briefly and who has the opportunity to speak with Emilia, the former gymnast who is in a wheelchair after an accident, assures her that his favorite verb is “relativize”. For the filmmaker, “it is giving things the right weight, understanding the importance of what surrounds us and making it lighter. It is what is most needed today.”
Since the pandemic, the number of depressions and suicides has risen sharply around the world. Has pessimism taken over society? “A negative vision doesn’t help at all. I don’t think you have to be excessively optimistic either. I simply believe that a healthy realism is needed in today’s society that can help us have an objective vision. Our perception is influenced by the media and they don’t give encouraging information”, admits Genovese, who believes that happiness “is made up of moments of well-being” and when they disappear “there is a problem”.
The First Day of My Life has achieved a huge box office success in Italy. Does it surprise you? “Dealing with the subject it touches on, which is very hard, I am very happy with the result. This film also carries a message of hope and I am happy that it has reached the public. Making drama is not the same as making a comedy”, he concludes the director, who has just put together Lions of Sicily, a series set in the 19th century that will premiere in October on Disney.
