Kisses and Hugs

An Italian film set in a Tuscan town. A local election is coming. Something happens in the town. A school, a building, a plot of land; what exactly happened matters less than who will get what out of it. From there the film is a story about a community. A few families, a few businesses, a party office and a bar. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone knows everyone's past. Politics here is a family matter. Which side a person is on was settled generations ago and nobody changes their mind. A group of young people are unemployed. There is no work in the town and they are thinking of leaving. There is an old communist as well. He is the town's memory; he remembers who did what and when, and nobody listens to him. What the narrative is interested in is not an election but continuity: its idea is that nothing in the town really changes, and that each generation has the same fight under new names. The humour is bitter. The narrative mocks its characters but does not abandon them. The regional language is used. The speech is Tuscan and that is a layer translation cannot carry. Paolo Virzì comes from this region and keeps the same class perspective across his films. The structure is loose. The narrative does not build a single plot; the scenes are laid out as sections of a community. Francesco Paolantoni, Massimo Gambacciani, Pietro Gremigni and Sabrina Ferilli are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Italian provincial comedy and portraits of a community. Who it is not for: anyone without the context; the narrative rests on Italian local politics and most of the jokes come out of it.