"Bird', the metaphor of growing up in a touching film

As in almost all her films, Andrea Arnold combines adolescent themes with situations of decidedly degraded and almost rotten spaces, in which the characters move with agility but without fully realising how oppressive and claustrophobic the places they find themselves can be.

Also from this perspective, the metaphor of flight and birds, as well as a character who gives the general meaning to the film's title, becomes a key to understanding a hope of escape, perhaps impossible, but nevertheless capable of generating desires, often utopian, to try and achieve a better future.

A special mention goes to the entire cast, but especially to the lead actress, newcomer Nykiya Adams, who is called upon to play a very delicate role.

She is, however, surrounded by two great performers like Barry Keoghan (as Bailey's father) and Franz Rogowski, a German actor who thrilled us in films like Christian Petzold's 'The Writer's Woman' or Ira Sachs' 'Passages'.

Among the week's new releases is an Italian film, 'Nottefonda', the behind-the-camera debut of Giuseppe Miale Di Mauro, loosely based on his novel 'La strada degli americani'.

Presented at last year's Rome Film Festival, the film is the result of a meeting between the director and actor Francesco Di Leva, both of whom are among the founders of NEST, the San Giovanni a Teduccio theatre, which arose ten years ago in the old gymnasium of an abandoned school, in one of the most difficult neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Naples, thanks to the efforts of a group of Neapolitan artists and technicians who have created a cultural and social rehabilitation operation aimed above all at young people.

The film stars Ciro, a man who has lost his self-confidence after the loss of his wife. He wants to find the person who ran her over and killed her on the road at night: this obsessive search risks making his son Luigi, only thirteen years old, played by Mario Di Leva, also the real-life son of actor Francesco, lose the chance to live a normal life.

The story of a father in disarray and a young boy forced to grow up fast in order to keep his parent and prevent him from a total descent into hell, 'Nottefonda' is an intense and mature first work, capable of portraying a particularly complicated relationship between two carefully written characters.

In the central part there are a few lapses and redundancies, but overall the film has its own consistent dramaturgical strength and Francesco Di Leva's performance is a great asset. A must-see.