Two decades after Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves, Cecilia Mangini continues to explore the theme of post-war Italy, which does not know what to do with its young generation. In her The Chant of Tiber’s Branches, Pier Paolo Pasolini—whose novel Ragazzi di Vita served as inspiration—gives voice to a grown man who looks back on his childhood in the suburbs of Rome. Together with a huge gang of mischievous boys, whom Mangini recruited from the real suburbs, he made the local marane (open sewers, ed.) unsafe. In her aggressive but lively portrait, they roll around in grass and marshlands, sunbathe, and fight each other.

Mangini aims for disharmony. On screen, the youngsters experience a seemingly carefree summer, which she overshadows with Pasolini’s reminiscences and a piano that drifts toward minor chords. The local pond in which the Roman youth romp soon reads like a breeding ground for a hopeless future. (Flo Vanhorebeek)