The fourth and final Italian competition entrant at this year's Venice Film Festival,
La solitudine dei numeri primi, has been described by its director as "a romantic horror story about the family and its impossible emancipation". The title translates into English as "the solitude of prime numbers", and it refers to the two main characters, Mattia and Alice: two people who, like prime numbers, only make sense by themselves and to themselves. Or at least that is apparent intention of the film's laboured symbolism. The film constantly cuts back and forth between these two people at three points in their young lives (as primary school children, as teenagers and as young adults), before ending with a look at them some years later. Both are long-suffering social misfits and perennial loners, who find some solace in each others company. Mattia loses his twin sister as an eight year old, whilst Alice walks with a limp after a skiing accident in her youth. They are broken people never able to escape from the trauma of their formative years. In each time period the two people look very physically different (each played by multiple actors), as the time in their lives is reflected in the changes to their bodies. The horror element highlighted by the director,
Saverio Costanzo, is evident in the film's score, played on an analog synth and reminiscent of The Shining. There are also lingering shots of empty corridors into which the camera slowly zooms, not to mention characters who verge on sociopathic. Costanzo creates moments of genuine tension, but truthfully, nothing frightening or violent ever materialises. The bullying Alice endures at school is unsettling and upsetting, whilst the story of Mattia losing his sister is tragic. But neither event is worthy of "horror" in the way it is realised.
I found the film extremely uninvolving for most of its 118 minute running length. It was greeted with a chorus of boos when it ended, and I may have been tempted to lend my voice to them had I not been lulled into a dazed stupor by that point. It is certainly at the poorer end of the spectrum in this year's competition. La solitudine was boring and its characters irritating. The first few moments of tension are interesting, but they come to nothing and you quickly realise that they never will. And with nothing to keep you involved, this unhappy jaunt through the world of two young depressives, becomes a chore.