A young writer who just moved in the building jumps in Giulia’s defence, a mysterious girl stalked by her ex-lover. The writer is suspected by the old lady landlords to be Giulia’s secret lover.
Mauro Villani’s main characters live solitary lives. Each has to cope with their own world and their own drama: Giulia with her attitude of hiding away from the entire world not only from her stalker, the young writer with his lack of inspiration threatened by his agent to provide content, the aggressive stalker in love with his drinking and with his impulse of continuously stir a conflict, but also the old-ladies landlords hunting the gossip.
Director Mauro Villani builds up a mysterious narrative line questioning whether the new writer was indeed Giulia’s new lover or if he just became that in the meanwhile.
Giulia’s apartment is a space that devours questions and consumes them secretly casting mystery and almost mysticising the place. Even when one finds out about the relationship between the young writer and Giulia they can’t distinguish fantasy from reality, they can’t say for sure if it is just a mirage, if it is the fantasy of the writer we are witnessing or the truth. There are of course a few clues but they won’t necessarily make it clear, leaving events with a great hue of uncertainty.
‘Giulia’s Place’ shows refined characters with subtle pasts and mysterious futures. Well filmed and directed, Mauro Villani’s short will remind with its ending of the youth’s eros that escapes time and space transcending its protagonists far away in tranquility.
TMFF RATING: