Paul Thomas Anderson
Licorice Pizza

Who are you, a little hungry or a greatly hungry one?

We race along scorching tracks so as not to miss that tram called desire, along avenues and paths and without any real destination; the important thing is not to look back, not to even glance at that cumbersome past.

And as former children of the stars, fallen heroes of a dream, after pursuing under the warm wind of summer physical well-being, hedonism and the last aerobics class of 7:30 p.m., after that sweet weariness of the evening in the company of the toxin brigade, thin but penetrating sediments of a profound spiritual dystonia, at the dawn of the new eschatological transition, where even going to the bathroom at the office can reveal itself as a highly sustainable experience, one may wonder if indeed it's worth looking back to relive fragments of that past.

Nothing too demanding, we wouldn't want that, no, just a little dose of madeleines, an aerosol of time lost.

And in a flash, by pure chance, it might be possible to once again be captivated by that memory of OLD ENCOUNTERS, of islands and solitary orbits that brush against each other but in moments flare up into eternal eclipses. Living in the youth of summer and in that perpetual motion, of repulsion and attraction, and in that lost dance of lovers and in that irrationality of chance which is the trademark and rebranding of Sir Paul Thomas Anderson.

The licorice pizza of Paul Thomas Anderson has exactly the charm of a pizza of magical delicacy but only imagined and never tasted, of a woman intimately loved in a distant past, but never frequented.

Because in Licorice Pizza as in a free jazz live by Herbie Hancock & Jaco Pastorius reference points and certainties vanish, the music flows impetuously through the night with the grace of an overflowing river, through slopes, paths and service stations of the San Fernando Valley, light years distant from the aristocratic stillness of Phantom Thread.

This is Anderson's cinema, which possesses that supernatural touch capable of distilling images so powerful as to become eternal, that unique ability to blur contrasts, to shatter dreams with sublime movements, to open worlds beyond the hedge of home, like those trembling fingers of the splendid Gary Valentine and Alana Kane who barely touch on the lunar background of a nocturnal reverie.

Like that anonymous and nocturnal phone call between Gary and Alana, that icy receiver that weighs like a boulder, that syncopated heartbeat that slowly rises and rises and beats in the throat, that mute silence of those sighs, that hourglass without sand and that waiting for a word that will not be heard, except to appear suddenly but only after being lost and reunited and lost again in the labyrinthine Fernando Valley.

Like that wonder of that distant and blurred melody of the long take opening of Boogie Nights, another masterpiece by Anderson, with Paul who at eighteen, four years later relives that solemn rhythm, that distant sound of brass that fades into the night, to the notes of Best of my Love by The Emotions, always at home, in that adorable city of Angels in that sleepy Fernando Valley.

You have all seen the film already, so here is the review of the day after that winks at the day before. Gary Valentine boasts an extraordinary confidence, despite some unresolved matches with acne, but in his buzzing around the 25-year-old Alana Kane he shows no hesitation and conjugates the renaissance grace of a Botticelli with the shrewdness of a Fonzarelli. The most imaginative aspect of the film is really believing what Alana might see in him, if not a budding used-car salesman with that fluent and casual talk. But at times Gary is almost unwittingly Orwellian - like when he starts talking about how "our roads have brought us here" – in short in that initial mantra of the film, where he seems possessed by the spirit of young Casanova, he might truly be able to seduce every girl in Los Angeles and at night with her get intoxicated in rivers of Pepsi.

Alana Kane is instead simply Alana Haim, a young rocker and native of the city of Angels, in fact we discover that she did not only lie to Gary about her age but also to us (she is in her thirties but wears them wonderfully). She is perfect in her emotional storm; she is immature, insecure, naive, anxious, and desires to be loved and feel important. That sweet and sly smile of hers could take her far, perhaps, certainly away from her family that follows her everywhere, in life, in music and for God's sake even in the film.

But there is a focus of P. T. A.'s thought that I would like to express better, of course, he never explains anything and in this, he is always sublime, he is like a shy assassin of our minds, perverse and very delicate who never leaves a material trace. Because in this play of roles, in this lysergic race of Gary and Alana in a Los Angeles instead gagged and immobilized by the Opec crisis, in this play of mirrors and historical recurrences, there also closes the magic circle of the distant past and our touching present. In that memory of an overly idealized world like that of Licorice Pizza, where the world of adults is a vaudeville and extra, where real life finally flows like a rushing river; where what results as politically correct inexorably bends in front of the complexity of the human soul. Where the same barrier of time is swept away and with it all its demographics and those identities that live at the expense of others' labels.

I think I was wrong, but between the first and the second half in a fleeting frame, it seemed to me that Paul asked me this question – but would you be ready to fight for all this? -

And therefore, there would be a veiled confrontation with that everyday life, cold and antiseptic outside the Fernando Valley of '73, or is this just a game of references and mirrors, somewhat like that driving in reverse and downhill of the truck masterfully driven by Alana that ran out of gas. Or could that memory of old encounters actually give rise to new ideas, become movement and generate dancing stars like Gary and Alana, in that Insoumise dance running towards each other, against each other. While the world in '73, as well as in 2022, always gives that bad impression of falling apart.

While in the variety of adults, an iconic Sean Penn survives reality smoking by chasing dreams of past glory on his Triumph saddle.

And why run for this Alana, dear Gary, is an act of love.

I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.

P. T. A.