Gianni Di Gregorio’s newest film, Salt of Life (Gianni e le donne, 2011) was screened at a special preview at London’s Curzon Mayfair cinema last Thursday (21 July). Following the screening, the director was present for an entertaining Q&A filled with affable anecdotes.
Salt of Life is a story of late middle-age and revolves around Gianni, who lives in Rome with his wife and grown-up daughter. Alerted to the fact that other, less attractive men of his age have lovers, Gianni is compelled to find another woman for himself. That is, if he can find the confidence—or the time, in between phone calls from his mother who is frittering away his much-needed inheritance.
In spite of the comic obstacles, Gianni’s story may sound like just another film about male mid-life crisis. Indeed, during the Q&A, one audience member asked Di Gregorio whether he was inspired by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s extramarital exploits with younger women. Di Gregorio pointed out that Gianni is in fact the anti-Berlusconi. He also argued that a new generation of more sensitive Italian men are putting the country’s macho image to rest.
One of the film’s taglines is Gianni’s complaint is that after a certain age, you become invisible to the opposite sex. It is not raging rebellion against this fact that drives Gianni to find a lover, though: he is a realist, unwillingly egged on by a friend. Not macho but self-deprecating, laid-back and entirely domestic, Gianni is really motivated by boredom—a lack of that ‘salt’ that makes life interesting and enjoyable. As his days otherwise consist of walking the dog, grocery shopping, and adjusting his mother’s television set, his search for a lover puts some variety in his life.
Much of the film’s comedy stems from its firm connection to reality: the devastatingly down-to-earth details that force you to laugh in order not to cry with disappointment. In the Q&A, Gianni revealed just how closely his film is based on his own life (99%, to be exact). As in his charming début feature, Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di ferragosto, 2008), Di Gregorio plays himself. The actress who played his mother in the previous film takes on the same role in Salt of Life, adding to the impression of a pre-existing reality. In Salt of Life, Di Gregorio persuaded his own wife and one of his daughters to play themselves, and even the dog is Di Gregorio’s own. When she saw the completed film and realised how closely it was based on real life, Di Gregorio’s wife told him that they ‘needed to talk’. The director joked that he has been avoiding this serious conversation ever since by spending the past 3 months on tour with the film. However awkward the film’s reality may be for the director’s family, for the audience Di Gregorio’s life story makes for an enjoyable comedy.
Salt of Life is released on the 12th of August in the UK.
