This film is part of Volume 2 of our summer series, Cinemaatjes, which centers around friendship.
Bernardo Bertolucci’s sweeping epic tells the story of 20th-century Italy through the parallel lives of two childhood friends: Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert De Niro) and Olmo Dalco (Gérard Depardieu). Alfredo is born into the wealthy Berlinghieri family, while Olmo is the illegitimate son of a peasant worker on the Berlinghieri estate.
The film follows the two boys — and their families — over the course of roughly eighty years, from the rise of fascism to the class struggle in the countryside. Against the backdrop of profound social and political upheaval, their lives remain inextricably linked — through both friendship and estrangement.
1900 is a cinematic masterpiece. As nearly a century of Italian history unfolds, Bertolucci manages to captivate and provoke the viewer throughout. The result is a monumental fresco of friendship, jealousy, revolution, fascism, violence, love, and much more. A film that demands to be seen on the big screen.