Martin Eden

A film set in Naples about a labourer trying to become a writer. Martin is a sailor. After protecting a young man in a fight he is invited to the house of a wealthy family. The books he sees there, the way they speak and the daughter of the house, Elena, change him. He starts reading and decides to become a writer. He writes for years. Publishers refuse him, he goes hungry, takes work and leaves it, and keeps writing. Elena's family expects a steady profession from him. Eventually his books are printed and he becomes known. At that point the film asks its real question: why are the people who refused the same texts for years now praising them, and why does success isolate a person. The source is Jack London's novel. The book is set in America; the film moves the story to Italy and leaves the period uncertain. The clothes, the cars and the political arguments belong to different decades, and that mixture is deliberate. Real archive footage is set into the narrative; the sixteen millimetre photography joins those documentary pieces. Luca Marinelli plays Martin and took the best actor prize at the Venice Film Festival. Pietro Marcello directed; he comes out of documentary. A strong production for anyone who likes literary adaptation and formal experiment. For a viewer expecting a straight narrative, the film muddies the sense of time on purpose.