A romantic, tragic story that blends reality and non-fiction to tell a story about remorse, love, and coming to terms with the past in Giovanni Bucchieri’s 100 Seasons, which opened at IFFR 2023.
Love and death, or love is death. Giovanni Bucchieri’s 100 Seasons (original title: 100 årstider) explores Giovanni’s life post dance and singing career amid his rising bipolar state. Blending his own personal home videos as a young adult, and playing a fictionalized version of what may seem his post artistic career, Giovanni uses both fiction and non-fiction elements to portray a love letter to his past where love, art, and death intertwine in a compelling and emotional love story.
Opening to a recorded performance of Giovanni watching a professional dancing performance of himself from decades ago, the scene switches between present day Giovanni, looking distraught and groggy, to home video of himself at a young age talking himself about his mortality. The film then switches to Louise, a theatre director who is currently in rehearsals for her next play, Romeo and Juliet. Her demanding directing of actors is a tribute to her success and respect to go full freedom. Tonally, as the film switches between Giovanni and Louise, tender piano music elucidates a melancholic atmosphere while slowly giving the relationship between the two. Giovanni was the dance teacher to the student, Louise, years ago. Using home video of the two from years past begins to show the tender, loving beginnings of their romance, leaving them in the present day, distraught.
As Giovanni’s unstableness begins to erupt, through false promises towards his career, refusal to take his medications, and seeing the success in Louise, he is given an opportunity as an old friend offers him a gig to perform his choreography in 8 weeks, putting a tension in place. His only friend, Anita, a neighbor only further shows his need for social interaction, since his mental state is getting worse. Louise goes through something similar, losing control of her actors, theater manager, and family. Her daughter with Giovanni is entering a relationship at a young age, causing Louise to be resentful and disallows her to see him.
But then again, the film’s idea is fixated on the past and the limelight, and that reality is never the happy ever after depiction. It’s important to see that these are memories that keep us hooked on the past, and that we can reminisce on the truly lovely times that Giovanni and Louisa had. What the film speaks to is a tragic love story that can never be, whether its fault on Giovanni’s manic episodes, and how we handle it is not how we should romanticize it, but to acknowledge and understand it. Louisa can’t save Giovanni, only he can, and while the film’s overarching theme of memories and the good time shouldn’t over shadow the true reality of one’s mental state.
What’s so remarkable about both these stories are that Giovanni and Louise’s real past seamlessly works into the fictionalized story of broken love and lost connections. For all we know, the home videos of frolicking through gardens, gift giving, personal experiences, and moments that ultimately show a loving past, only better support the film’s arc of Giovanni’s downfall due to his mental illness. By formulating a narrative of a beautiful tale of love and its memories, we see the present-day Giovanni and Louise to still be affected by their loss in love.
As the story progresses, we see how they are still affected by their ex-partners in there everyday life. Whether it is career goals such as Giovanni’s upcoming gig, where he delusionally prepares with boxing lessons and tells the world of his comeback, or Louise’s stage play of Romeo and Juliet begin to lose control and goes on to a sexual encounter to feel something. The two are at a crossroads until they happen to cross paths due to a sudden tragedy.
It’s a story of how love stays with you when you are without a closure. I kind of don’t want to know if Giovanni and Louise are still together or if they separated. The self-indulgent and loathing aspect of it feels like a call or tribute to a previous partner or current partner, which is beautifully constructed through its narrative going back in forth between home videos and the narrative. Through fact and fiction, Giovanni and Louisa’s relationship is a spectacle to behold which greatly utilizes the real and non-real to tell an uncompromising story about love that is out of our control.
