#FILM
“Nettuno” by Giulio Gobbetti (2022)
Alessandra is a girl who grew up on the fourth floor of her family’s hotel in Sottomarina, a tourist resort on the Veneto coast. Today, now 26 years old, she works full-time in that same hotel: an old-fashioned job, hers, that almost never stops.
Of the forty days a year when the glass doors of the Hotel Nettuno remain closed, half is dedicated to cleaning. Through the lens of the observational documentary, ‘Nettuno’ bears witness to Alessandra’s life, behind and in front of the counter. Balances, doubts, certainties of a girl born with destiny in her cradle. Giulio Gobbetti forges, with inspired, analytical direction, a film punctuated by creative editing consonant with the cyclical rhythms of hotel work.
Glimpses and details of the Hotel Nettuno, in fact, return several times – framed at different times of day – to measure its vital times: breakfast preparation, check-ins, the bar, lunch and dinner, the return of the keys, greetings. In between, Alessandra’s birthday. Guests come, go and leave. She, tirelessly, stays.
– Francesco A. Dubini
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