A speed boater and his girlfriend maneuver around the coasts of Venice and its islands in this moody portrait of contemporary youth culture.
Those in need of right-brain fuel may find a source in “Atlantide,” a documentary-narrative hybrid film that offers a highly stylized window into Italian youth culture. Thin on story and nearly free from dialogue, the film takes place on the turbid Venetian Lagoon where locals congregate to scroll their phones, speed on motorboats and pump their fists to trap music.
Much of the film is spent trailing the solemn Daniele (Daniele Barison), a young skipper from the agricultural island of Sant’Erasmo, as he maneuvers his petite two-seater around the inlet. Like those of his peers, Daniele’s boat bears the name of his girlfriend, Maila (Maila Dabala), who plays passenger on his sea rovings and reluctantly indulges his yen for speed racing.
Characters seldom speak, but when they do, the director, Yuri Ancarani, paints the interpersonal moments with admirable restraint. In one sequence, as Maila lays bare her emotions to her manicurist, Ancarani grants the women privacy by fixing his camera not on their faces but on their hands, delicately intertwining across the cosmetic table.
It’s a rare moment of intuition in a film that disproportionately favors impressionism over substance. And visually, the film is brimming: Ancarani depicts bridges agape over canals, forts crumbling in ruin and ominous bricola, or wooden poles, protruding from the lagoon like broken bones. Had “Atlantide” granted deeper access to Daniele and Maila, these images might have lent a moody complement to the characters and their struggles. As is, any sense of meaning is cast adrift in a sea of pretty pictures.
Atlantide
Not rated. In Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
