There is an old parable about an olive grower sitting on a rock on a hillside watching the sea. Along comes a successful businessman on holiday who surveys the scene and then approaches the farmer. He tells him with such a land holding the grower could turn his farm into an international business.
“You could modernise your equipment and quadruple your output,” he says.
“What would I do then?” says the grower. “Well you could create an export market and sell olive oil to other countries.”
“What would I do then?” says the grower. “You could employ some trusted people and not have to work at all.”
“What would I do then?” says the grower. “Well…you could sit on a rock on a hillside and watch the sea.”
Such is the premise of La Vita va Cosi (2025), sold to international audiences as Life is Life. The Italian translation of the original title is That’s Life or That’s How Life Goes.
Efisio Mulas (Giuseppe Loi) is a shepherd living in the same home as all his previous generations on the south-west Sardinian coast. Each day he tends his cattle, walking them to “pasture” on the pristine beach.
He sits, rough-hewn walking stick beneath his chin, and admires the sea. He walks the cattle back to his home and tends to his fishing nets or cures his tomatoes.
He is the only hold-out stopping the advance of a modern resort, which will bring further riches to the international company planning it and much-needed employment to the nearby town.
Giacomo (Diego Abatantuono) is the company’s principal, convinced by his management group that the shepherd will provide no trouble and be easily bought out.
A decade later with offers in lire becoming much higher offers in euro, Efisio will not sell.
Life is Life shows the battle of wills between Efisio and the local towns people, who all want to embrace the resort to give themselves annual employment and the spin off of tourism money. The company continues its quest, initially sending a project manager, Mariano (Aldo Baglio), to make an offer and then begin work. He is told “No.”
Meanwhile, Efisia’s daughter, Francesca (Virginia Raffaele) becomes his counsel and go-between with the town’s people, who become increasingly distant from her.
Life is Life moves at a slowish pace, rather like the negotiations with Efisio, who is based on the real-life Ovido Marras, who defied a similar quest by developers near Teulada in southern Sardinian where the movie was filmed.
The parable in Life is Life is that Efisio says the beach and water belong to everyone and not the one with the most money. However, his decision has the reality of how many people are affected by the thwarting of employment prospects. It is a knife-edge conundrum of the modern world.
Towns die because young people move to big cities. But tourism can kill too. “Call some place Paradise. Kiss it goodbye” wrote Don Henley.
At a tick under two hours, Life Is Life is too long and there are questions the narrative possibly got wrong. First, Francesca is shown to work in a resort. This is revealed late in the film. Surely Giacomo would have had contacts in ‘resort land’ to have had some influence over her devotion to her father’s stand? Second, why did it take 10 years for Giacomo to visit the region and talk to Efisio?
ADDENDUM: Rob McKinnon wrote the following on website Glam Adelaide and it seemed to resonate with the audience I shared. However, I must disagree about the final scene and squirmed when I saw the cast choreographically positioned in the town centre. A cringeworthy Bollywood dance was coming up. Call me a killjoy but it lowered the tone of the whole message for me.
“Diego Abatantuono, Aldo Baglio and Virginia Raffaele (along with the rest of the cast) perform well but are outshone by the outstanding performance of Giuseppe Ignazio Loi who is not a professional actor but is a real-life shepherd.
Stay for the excellent closing credit song featuring the whole cast.”
La Vita va Cosi won Best Comedy at the Nastro D’Argento Awards, Italy’s oldest (established 1946) and most prestigious national film awards. Italian comedies must be a bit thin on the branch.
The movie reminded me of the premise of Follow That Dream (1962), an Elvis Presley-vehicle about a family of hillbilly types who drive their old truck laden with their possessions and family onto land adjoining a pristine Florida beach. The site is all set to be developed by a hotel group. After attempts to have them evicted, the family fights for their right to be there and, as in La Vita va Cosi win their battle in court. Coincidentally, the film premiered in April 1962, five months before The Beverley Hillbillies (and its heavily-laden truck of possessions and hillbilly family) began its nine-year run as one of the most successful TV sitcoms.
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