A villa in Tuscany that cures everything.
“Tuscany is very creative”, says the character he plays with great historical reason and obviousness Liam Neeson in A villa in Tuscany (Theatrical release Friday, August 6). The actor, who abandons for a moment the subgenre perfected by him of his personal revenge, gets into the skin of an abstract and material painter, deeply lost and depressed since the death of his wife.
As a painter, he knows what he is talking about: he lived in the heart of Tuscany, in one of the most beautiful areas, Val d'Orcia, in the house / villa / palazzo belonging to his wife's family. There he created and created and created. He created so feverishly in front of those hills, under those cypress trees that, when he left there, his creativity dried up. And also his love for his son, whom he practically abandoned without knowing what to do after the death of his mother.
But now his son needs him and he needs, above all, that villa in Tuscany that he hasn't been to in two decades. He wants to sell it to continue his unattainable ambitions in the poshest and most expensive London. Together, in a beat-up van, "on the most boring road in Europe", They travel to Val d'Orcia to reconnect with their town and the memories of it. With the pain.
Micheál Richardson, son of Neeson, at the villa.
The dilapidated state of the house is the metaphor for the hearts and heads of it. Shattered. angry. sad. Against that decadence, the infinite and relaxed beauty of the Tuscan landscape. A healing beauty. Of delicate undulations and vertical trees. Warm colors and promising sunsets. And always some small restaurant with a pasta dish that bursts the senses and nostalgia.
The actor James D'Arcy (Dunkerke, Homeland, Leonardo…) he wrote A Villa in Tuscany (in English Made in Italy), precisely, while he was on vacation in this Italian region so exploited on screen. He began by writing a story of resentment and rancor between father and son that only "the glorious Tuscan hills could melt to reveal the true love between them." Namely, the landscape built history.
Hills and cypresses: Tuscany.
And so it does. They had a hard time finding the exact location, the correct villa. They discovered her in the Val d'Orcia (where Gladiator and The English Patient were also filmed), near the city of think, famous for its duomo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. The house is Villa Fontanelle, a private villa, owned by an octogenarian architect who has kept it almost intact since a renovation in the 1980s. A villa that can sometimes be rented.
The town through which the protagonists get lost is the neighboring village of Monticchiello. Of cobblestone streets, curves and steep. In the municipal restaurant, Il Bronzino, they were allowed to build the restaurant where they go to fall in love with the best risotto. In the square, they organized for them an outdoor cinema, as they usually do every summer.
The perfect Tuscan trattoria.
FATHER AND SON
A villa in Tuscany also has another extra interest. Its leading actors. Liam Neeson like his father and son in real life, Michael Richardson, like the son in the movie. Reality and fiction do not just cross there. Neeson's wife, Richardson's mother, the actress Natasha Richardson, died in 2009 in a skiing accident, when Micheál was only 13 years old.
This shooting has been for them "a cathartic experience" says the Schindler's List actor. "When I read it, it was a story so close to us and it was strange how it came to us at that time when it had just been 10 years since the death of mother," confesses the young actor (who had already coincided with his father in Revenge under zero). Replay the duel, get it all out, open up parts of them. And sure those views helped.
"Views? is that what you call one of the most spectacular convergences in nature? asks Robert (Neeson) wryly. “You haven't even looked at them,” Jack (Richardson) replies. He doesn't need it. He remembers them. “Two cypress trees frame the composition, drawing the eye through negative space to the focal point of the perfectly centered villa. All unified by these** magnificent rolling Tuscan hills.** Sunset, remember? The light coming through those windows takes your breath away.” It is the romantic idyll of Tuscany, orchestrated by Puccini and a house that heals everything.
Liam Neeson in 'A Villa in Tuscany'.