lasttimeisaw
Saw the film in my oral Italian class (sadly the last one, as the course will finish in two weeks), this time due to the fact that the screen shrank dramatically (we moved to a shabbier classroom), so I have to be more focus as to see clear what was happening on the screen (my eyesight reduces gradually), as in the film there are a dozens of characters (in a small screen, Italians look so alike each other) and I must not bypass the subtitles at the same time.A simple, nice comedy of teenagers coming-of-age with a nostalgic reminiscence of '80s. Without too much ambition and ostentations. Even though most characters are not all well developed, everything seems real and natural (in a way), not pushed by force. The time before Italian high school exams, like China's university entrance exam, a milestone in a teenager's life, also a transition from teenager to adulthood, a critical time which will influence one's entire life inevitably. Apart from school life, love at first sight (though not reciprocal), friendship, cheating (messing around with girlfriend's younger sister), pot, an unrequited love, a divorced family, a senile love story, even death (again I doubt it's necessity here), are all tangled altogether, I must say writers have really exerted studious effort to make it suitable for all demography. This film was a huge domestic success that year and of course a sequel derived from it was produced in 2007 (Notte Prima Degli Esami: Oggi) and predictably failed to match its precedent's quality.The film also reminds me of Totto L'amore Che C'e (2000), another Italian film about adolescence (with a '70s background) I watched several months ago, nostalgia still is a trend now (at least in Italian cinema), DURAN DURAN and QUEEN, or LADY GAGA and DRAKE, which is better? To tell the truth, I'm so eager to experience the period when the latter will have become a history as well.
marco-frullanti
"Notte Prima Degli Esami" is for the most part a teen movie, but a great one indeed. It depicts the last days of high school of a group of friends before the final exam (maturità). I always love the first scene, when Luca do what is the dream of every student: to tell his hated teacher what he really think about him, the relationship that grows between them and then the very final scene of the movie (I won't spoil it!). Most of the themes dealt are typical of comedies like this: love, coming of age, friendship, various accidents, but are presented in a way which really feel true. Most of the character are not really developed but are enjoyable anyway. Some dialogs are really funny and well written. But the two things that makes this movie great are the ones that makes it enjoyable to two different audience: the ones who were young in the '80's, the time when Notte Prima Degli Esami is set, who can appreciate the great soundtrack and many subtle details, and the ones who are about the same age of the characters now. I made the "Maturità" exams three years ago, and every time I see this movie it always reminds me the emotions that I felt those days, because it just feels so true: the anxiety, the accidents, the stress; but more than over the friendship that bound together me and my friends in those days just like the characters in "Notte Prima Degli Esami"!
marcus_stokes2000
*Night Before The SPOILERS* June 1989, last day of school.Young Luca (Nicolas Vaporidis), who has just ended his final year of school, decides to reveal exactly what he thinks of his former professor, Mr. Martinelli (Giorgio Faletti), nicknamed 'Carogna', and just a second after finds out that he is going to be the head teacher at the 'Exams' of the title, the 'Esami Di Maturità', Italian High Schools' Final Exams.Obviously, Luca despairs he's ever going to pass them, and to add insult to injury, he falls in love with a girl called Claudia (Cristiana Capotondi), who he met at a party neither of them was invited to... and who he doesn't know is none other than Martinelli's daughter! In the meanwhile, there are plenty of problems for his friends, too; other than the exams, of course; one of them sleeps with his girlfriend's younger sister (twice!) and gets his girlfriend pregnant, another one smokes a lot of pot, and decides to do a clandestine sell of (potential) titles of essays which will be given at the Maturità, and the only girl tries to give a hand whenever needed... and to hide her crush on Luca.We meet also Claudia's friends, one of which has not been deemed able to do the Maturità, and her family... and her boyfriend Cesare, a compendium of bad traits if there is one (so much that his girlfriend writes to him 100 reasons why she has decided to break up with him).And as the Maturità approaches, all the stories come to an end...'Notte' is a breath of fresh air for the Italian Cinema, a movie made just to be enjoyed; not forced, and characterizing teenagers as people, instead of the usual 'oversexed' image.One of the reviews described it as 'the Italian Breakfast Club'; and I agree, because despite the 1980s setting, even someone who, like me, did his Maturità only three years ago, can relate to those characters; everybody has been a Luca, fell in love with a Claudia (only to lose her to a Riccardo, or been an Alice, loving but silently, in fear of rejection. Everybody has done some stupid things like Massi, and I dare everyone to say they never met a 'Carogna' during their studies.All I can say is, thank you Franco Brizzi for this beautiful movie.Notte Prima Degli Esami: 9/10.
stf-nr
First of all, and just to put all cards on the table, this movie is nothing exceptional, nor an outstanding masterpiece... it is simply a nice movie on a lot of classic problems teenagers are facing when passing from adolescence to adult age. And if you are getting close (or just entered) your thirties you will absolutely enjoy a lot of reference to the late 80s music and way of life because one of the best ideas they had when writing the screenplay has been to move the story back of about 25 years. And notice the performance of Giorgio Faletti as the high-school teacher, he is a nearly perfect mix of comic and tragedy. Definitively worth a view!
AD
