Never seen such intimacy on screen before. They way this movie is directed is stunning, unpredictable with loving characters and a real life story. This picture is like food for my soul.

There is an exaggerated sense of relevance to this film. Or a sense of portentousness; that it is rising to something. It is pretentiously self-important, although based on a simple story of friends and an event in another country. It's in the frame as a rite of passage story, but it is infused with such self-regard and po-faced seriousness as to disarm its viewers.

A major weakness is the length. It is at least 25 minutes too long because it does not have sufficient material and is often stuck with that nauseating trope of such films of showing a montage with a soundtrack to fill in the time and apparently reveal something. In other cases, people parking cars and doing mundane jobs, is barely interesting.

The film is promoted with the angle that a great event occurred in a foreign city which irrevocably changed lives, but frankly, if the character had just gone to the shops to buy groceries, it would have had the same impact.

Four young women with different strengths, fragilities and ambitions. From my perspective, the main story pull seemed settled between Caterina (Gastini) and Liliana (Roveran) while Angela (Laura Adriani) and Caterina (Le Caselle) mostly take the back seat on this one (the two are disturbed when Gastini-Roveran balance shifts namely in/by Belgrade).

Caterina's mother Adria (Margherita Buy) is a talented hair-dresser. Her 'women-only' salon is a place of craft and magic where female sensuality is revitalised. Adria is the director from that layer, however, seemingly preoccupied with (fading) surface attractiveness, she almost overlooks her daughter's illness.

(The daughter as ailing but strong inspiration.)

Very early on, the film is emotionally anchored by Mina's hair. We see a variation: sombre and controlled when muted, but joyous and full of life when in dance, in wind. This is reflected throughout the film by dreamy images (superimposed screens) as flowing reflections of canopies' shimmering leaves/branches on windscreens.

The main problem in this film is in how Belgrade part was managed. The director decided to place Mina in the story explicit. This was unnecessary, removing much of the mystique from the story (and Mina/Belgrade character) replacing it with French philosopher's empty harping. Worse even, Mina was asked to play herself. Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory and Louis Malle had decades of working experience- Mina is a (young) director. She does hold her own here (amazingly so) but clearly struggles attempting to place and anchor herself.

One more qualm. Just before the trip begins, and again, just before it ends (cornerstones of the main story) we are served up some cutesy lit candles business. Adriani's powerful sensuality should have been allowed to blossom into one of the main drivers behind this film. Instead, we get her as some almost telenovella character. Her hair is amazing.

Marta Gastini deftly carries most of the hinted (but not shown) subplot.

Le Caselle's role is I suppose mostly uninteresting to non-catholics. The actress' eyes I found very expressive and beautiful (reminiscent of early, silent films).

The unique thing about this film, I think, is a shift from female lips as the focus of sex to the area between side of the neck and hair. Small punkish star on Gastini's ear winks at us.

This is a beautiful and inspired film, evidently made by a good man. I just wish the professor wasn't such a muppet. Hopefully, next time.