Francesco Sossai’s The Last One for the Road (Le città di pianura) is a rollicking, bittersweet journey through the Venetian countryside, where memory and mischief ride shotgun. Following two larger-than-life men from Italy’s lost generation and the shy student they take under their wing, the film revives the spirit of Commedia all’italiana while reflecting on places, people, and eras that slip away with time. After its North American premiere and a great run of showings at TIFF, we sat down with Sossai to dig into the story at the heart of the film, shooting on film stock, and what’s next for him.
JG: The film revives Commedia all’italiana while also feeling fresh and modern. What drew you to that tradition, and how did you want to adapt it for today’s audiences?
Francesco Sossai: I think Commedia all’italiana was an instrument that allowed directors to speak about the present time of their era. I think about Il Sorpasso by Dino Risi or I Soliti Ignoti by Monicelli, and all those films. They speak about their time. And they’re a photograph of their time that’s still valid today. Like, you watch Il Sorpasso and you realize how Italy was that exact year. And so, I wanted to use this instrument to do the same process. Going away from an online or digital language or language more derived from social media or digital views, and going more into this other way of looking at things to try to portray Italy today.
JG: Carlobianchi and Doriano are both larger-than-life and heartbreakingly ordinary. How did you and Adriano Candiago (his co-writer) balance comedy, melancholy, and social critique in writing these characters?
Francesco Sossai: I think that derives from our regional culture, from North East Italy. There is a sort of sadness and melancholy, but combined with a deep sense of humour. And so, I think it’s a bit of our cultural heritage. But at the same time, I hate when you impose a tone on a character or on a film. I want to get to know a character so well that they can move freely, somehow, when we write them. And so, life is like this. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s sad, and I want to give that feeling of life in this film.
JG: Giulio serves as both witness and participant in this odyssey. Do you see him as a surrogate for younger generations struggling with uncertainty, or more as a mirror for your own past self?
Francesco Sossai: I think it’s both. I reflect a lot of myself in the characters. What I wanted to portray was someone belonging to this generation, so someone in their 20s, 21, or 22 years old. But someone who also feels a bit off with his generation. I remember I felt that when I was younger. So I wanted him to be both a part of his generation, but at the same time not able to come to terms so easily with his generation and a young man full of questions.
JG: The film gestures toward Italy’s so-called “Lost Generation,” men who came of age in the 1970s only to be disoriented after the 2008 crisis. Do you hope audiences outside Italy connect with that story?
Francesco Sossai: Absolutely. I hope they connect because I think it’s a universal theme, the fact that you grow in a world and maybe you’re gonna die in another world. It happens all the time to all generations, that you were raised with some values and some views and a specific horizon and growing old means that this horizon is going to change and become something else, and you see the landscape changing. I think it’s a universal feeling.
JG: The choice to shoot on film stock gives the movie a texture that feels nostalgic, almost like leafing through old photographs. What does celluloid allow you to express here that digital couldn’t?
Francesco Sossai: What happens when a film opens and you realize it’s shot on film stock is that you know that someone is telling you a story because we were used to seeing stories in that way. It’s like when you go to a bar and someone sits next to you and says, Let me tell you a story. You get the same exact feeling. You know that a story is going to come. With digital, it’s a bit different because it’s trickier, because we see digital images all the time now. So, how can you differentiate a film or the feeling you have towards a film when you’re constantly exposed to digital images? It’s more difficult. It’s not that you can’t do it; it’s just difficult. When you shoot on film, the audience reacts physically immediately to the medium and knows they’re watching a film
JG: The movie is undeniably joyous, but it’s also about men haunted by the weight of time and change. At a moment when the world itself feels heavy, what kind of “lightness” did you want this film to offer audiences?
Francesco Sossai: For me, it’s in one of the last sentences in the dialogue, when Carlobianchi comments on the fact that he got a different taste of the ice cream, and he says, I expected it to be bitter, but it’s sweet in the end. For me, the feeling I have with the film is that it’s good to open up to what is unpredictable, and you can never know what’s going to come, so it’s good to embrace it. The world is going to change, and every generation will have the feeling that they live at the end of their world. But there’s always a world after that, and we need to be open to that.
JG: After a successful North American premiere at TIFF, what’s next for you?
Francesco Sossai: Next week, I’m gonna be in Busan for the Busan International Film Festival, and then there’s gonna be the Italian distribution of the film. And then, I’m gonna go to the New York Film Festival and then to the Viennale.
