Futura

A portrait of Italy observed through the eyes of teenagers who talk about the places they live in and imagine themselves, torn between the opportunities that surround them, the dream of what they want to become, the fear of failing, the trials they hope to overcome.

The thing that is most striking about this documentary is that virtually none of the views expressed here (save, perhaps, those on religion) are any different from those expressed by my generation in the UK thirty years ago. A variety of youngsters from the length and breadth of Italy offer us their views on how they perceive not just their own future but the broader options for mankind in an honest and initially interesting fashion. Everything from the optimistic to the downright naive. What is consistent, again, is the constant referral to the older generations as "they" as if their parents and grandparents were aloof, sitting on-high somewhere, never having been young themselves. Never having had dreams and ambitions that they ultimately sacrificed and/or compromised so that these folks could tell us about the relative successes and failures of their inherited society. As you might expect, it also ranges from high and principled aspirations to more basic ones, and the contributors range from shy and retiring to confident and outgoing, and it does make for a thought-provoking watch for a while. After half an hour, though, the originality starts to become replaced by a more repetitive narrative that might well resonate in Italy where geographical and societal influences may hold more store, but elsewhere it comes across as a competently but basically produced vehicle for a wide range of opinions that will probably still reflect views twenty years hence as accurately as it would have done for those twenty years previously. It's far too long, but if you are interested then wait til it gets a television outing. There is no need to see this in a cinema.