Come te nessuno mai [But Forever in My Mind] (1999)

Directed by Gabriele Muccino
Written by Gabriele Muccino, Silvio Muccino, and Adele Tulli
Starring Silvio Muccino, Giuseppe Sanfelice, Giulia Steigerwalt and Giulia Carmignani

When his classmates conspire to occupy their high school, an act of social rebellion in the tradition of Europe’s generation of 1968, Silvio Ristuccia must be a part of it. Though he’s not nearly as politically active as the rest of his classmates, he’s going to the protest because there’s a distinct chance that he can score with his friend’s girlfriend.

It’s not that Silvio, who is played by Silvio Muccino is a bad guy, it’s just that he and his best friend Ponzi, played by Giuseppe Sanfelice, are eager to lose their virginity in this coming of age comedy set in Rome during the late 1990s.

If But Forever in My Mind were a drama, I would have said that the director Gabriele Muccino (Silvio’s older brother) and the film’s composer Paolo Buonvino, had no sense of irony, portraying the petty dramas of adolescence that take on momentous significance for those who experience them with earnestness and a straight face. I would have thought that Muccino underestimated his audience. But I’ve just seen that the film is listed as a comedy in IMDB, and I’ve decided that he may have overestimated his audience—or at least me.

But Forever in My Mind is really directed from a 16 year old’s perspective. Indeed, the first shot of the film is actually from a scene that happens at the end of the story, as Silvio lies on Ponzi’s doorstep wondering what he will think of himself at age 16 when he is 45. It’s funny, because I think I would have looked at this film much differently when I was 16 (although I am only 28 now).

Like he showed in his 2003 film, Ricordati di me (whose title "Remember Me My Love," seems unnecessary if his previous film really were "But Forever in My Mind") featuring, as every Italian movie should, Monica Belucci, But Forever in My Mind, Muccino has a very slick, polished directing style. I tried watching his 2001 film L'Ultimo bacio but all of the characters seemed equally immature without any redeeming characteristics, and I just couldn't get into it. I turned it off after 45 minutes and I uncharacteristically sent it back without watching the whole thing.

Besides the main element of drama in But Forever in My Mind's first act being the gossip going around about who is sleeping with whom the irony is evident in each of the students whose reasons for demonstrating are identical: “to protest privatization and standardization.” Since I would bet few of the students really understand what privatization is or realize how standard their answers are, I would suspect that Silvio’s reason for joining the protest is not that uncommon.

What these kids really want, as Silvio’s question in the first shot suggests, is to know that their lives are meaningful. Their parents protested Vietnam. They have nothing to protest but abstract ideas. But where Silvio and Ponzi are really looking for meaning is in sex. They are anxious about their first time and they want to get it right. In the last scene one character tells another (I don’t want to give which one away), “Today it was you, tomorrow will be me.” The sincerity of the statement, and the emotions the friends put in each other’s confidence, are in fact touching.