An old man stumbles onto a diary. His memory has faded in recent times, but he becomes engrossed in something he wrote 40 years earlier. Diving into the pages, he reads a story about a young male travelling overseas in order to discover love. Gian, the elderly person, is captivated by his younger self, a youth who would happily give his whole heart to his beloved Leila. Memories start forming: amnesiac Gian begins to recall his life as an adolescent, a father and a widower. Love connects these disparate strands, which scares and excites his daughter, who has moved back home to look after her ailing parent.
Structurally, Weightless shares some commonalities with Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988). Both films deal with an ageing man reflecting on the glories of love. Sara Fgaier uses black and white images – jugglers, divers, aeroplane pilots – in order to accentuate Gian’s journey, in a way similar to Alfredo recalling his young days with cinema to hand. It is the writing that brings up these abstract portraits back to life: when Gian recalls a dance he enjoyed with a lady, it is accompanied by a mirthful audience applauding his efforts. His mind adds these little details, but his eyes (the subjective camera) return to Leila; her face and lips curled in a ravishing closeup. Fittingly, the backdrop becomes much more colourful the further he reads, and the footage of old cinema is replaced by memories that are based on authenticity a la singing songs to a new born baby.
The strength of the movie isn’t the story, bare bone as it is, but the voyage Gian undertakes. The viewer witnesses his re-birth, as he regains a sense of his past experiences and himself. “Animals don’t return to traps,” he reads;”Why should I?” A younger Gian can be seen wandering into a hotel room where Leila awaits him. The pair were supposed to meet in Tunisia one year earlier, but evidently the sparks remain, and they talk about making love. Where Gian reads about it, the audience gets to watch a young couple contemplate their future as a unit. The two are fragile, having broken up once before, sitting at opposite ends of the bed in their bewilderment.
Leila’s voice grows more apparent, as she describes the many letters she hoped to write Gian. Vulnerability cements the voiceover: the lady who once waltzed out of Gian’s life now desperately wishes to re-enter it. The buoyancy comes at a price to the older man, who rarely speaks to his grandson, a toddler who uses crayons to decorate his face. Gian’s daughter is concerned that the memories are taking him from his reality; no matter how dour a life as a widower truly is.
Dazzlingly romantic, Weightless never shies away from the reality that the protagonist is an ill man battling a form of amnesia. And although he can revisit his memoirs, the woman who loved him and his child is now in a coffin; another reminiscence in his box of souvenirs. Acceptance will lead to sorrow, grief to wonder, awe to happiness. In an impressive mélange, two of the incarnations bump into one another. “They look like us as adults,” the younger Leila admits. Her older, greyer counterpart smiles.
Movies often represent the fantasies we have as children. Weightless, by contrast, is much more affected by experience, and although there are fantastical moments, the heart of the work stems from an authentic journey as a lover. Behind the directorial interpolations, montages and animated sequences comes a tale of tremendous love.
Weightless premiered in the Official Competition of the 77th Locarno Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. The UK premiere takes place in October as part of the 68th BFI London Film Festival.
