Gus Van Sant
Milk

I was expecting the usual biographical/hagiographical film and instead I was faced with a masterpiece. Gus Van Sant truly hit the mark directing a perfect film. There are two great protagonists in this story: Sean Penn and the director's eye. The former proves to be one of the greatest contemporary actors: an astonishing performance from a physical point of view, meticulously crafted in every detail, a true transformation into something other than himself (I can only imagine what the original language version of the film must be like). I struggle to find suitable superlatives to describe Sean Penn's performance, which amazes image after image for the intensity and naturalness of his interpretation.

As for the director's eye, as we were saying. Gus Van Sant directs Harvey Milk's life story in an almost scientific manner, showing us everything without ever making his presence felt: joy, love, disappointment, greatness, happiness, hatred, mistakes, limitations, flaws... here it is not the director telling us a story, but we are witnessing a story that tells itself without fear of showing even its most fragile or questionable sides. In short, there is so much humanity; that's what strikes you as you watch a film you immediately recognize as a masterpiece. And this is beyond the perfectly fitting (and never superfluous or heavy) use of archive footage that seamlessly blends in and out of the screen.

It's impossible not to talk about the film's central theme, the fight for civil rights, an issue that remains very current (unfortunately!). You feel uneasy every time you remember that the film is set in 1978: the idea that thirty thousand homosexual people could march openly, or that an openly gay person could hold an institutional role in Italy at that time was pure science fiction. Lastly, what amazes is the vitality this film manages to convey to the viewer, a force and energy that go beyond the homosexual themes and make you understand that without our civil rights we are nothing. Milk talks about freedom, individual rights, civility, respect, hope, activism, participation, happiness.

Milk talks about the American dream and the one great lesson the United States can still teach with heads held high: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."