Family, politics an explosive mix

It’s been nearly five years since the six-hour Italian triumph “The Best of Youth” debuted at Cannes and then came to America. Those who saw it soon understood that nothing in the current cinematic world is as rare as this kind of serious, adult storytelling, and few thought that they would see anything like it again. But now they can.

A new Italian film, “My Brother Is an Only Child,” bears a striking resemblance to “The Best of Youth,” undoubtedly because it has the same screenwriters, Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli. Both films use the turbulent era of the 1960s and ‘70s as a backdrop and adroitly intertwine the personal and the political. With a more normal running time of 1 hour, 48 minutes, “My Brother” is not the masterwork “Best of Youth” was, but it still satisfies in ways much of today’s pygmy cinema cannot.

Like “Youth,” “My Brother Is an Only Child” focuses on two siblings who are on opposite sides of an ideological divide, and it does so with a vengeance. In an interesting twist, “Brother” (directed by Daniele Luchetti, who also co-wrote) is told from the point of view of the brother whose personal politics make him an unlikely narrator.

That would be Accio (Elio Germano, a ringer for a young James Woods), who is introduced as an adolescent seminarian who insists to his priest that he doesn’t want to be absolved of his sins, he wants to be punished for them.

Stubborn, hard-headed, a born contrarian, Accio leaves the seminary soon enough and moves back home, but no one in his volatile family is anything like happy to see him return. Especially not his older brother Manrico, the favorite son.

As played by the heavy-lidded, broodingly handsome Riccardo Scamarcio, who had a small part in “Best of Youth,” Manrico is a fiery, charismatic member of the local Communist Party, a smoldering Rudolph Valentino of a revolutionary.

With a brother like this and a temperament like his, it’s no surprise that Accio, whose name translates as “bully,” discovers an affinity for Italy’s semi-moribund Fascist movement. His interest is heightened when Mario Nastri (Luca Zingaretti), a local party member with an unlikely kindly streak, takes Accio under his wing.

As the pivotal year of 1968 approaches, a woman enters the scene and complicates the brothers’ relationship. Francesca (Diane Fleri) is a young party comrade of Manrico’s as well as his girlfriend, but the love-struck Accio thinks she deserves better than his brother’s thoughtless, self-involved behavior. ‘Twas ever thus.

One of the characteristics of “My Brother Is an Only Child” is a wry appreciation of the nature of European radical politics during the 1960s. The film manages to be both amused at the often comic excesses of doctrinaire ideology as well as strongly aware of bureaucratic abuses of power that sorely needed correction.

Aided by the solid direction of co-writer Luchetti, scripters Petraglia and Rulli seem to take special pleasure in the volatility of the brothers and their family members, all of whom are constantly at someone’s throat, yelling at and even slapping one another with fierce abandon. If a prize were given for the shortest fuses in the country, this contentious group would definitely be among the contenders.

If some of this sounds like stereotypical Italian behavior, and if in fact “My Brother Is an Only Child” has a weakness for abrupt and melodramatic plot devices, it has other virtues that make it truly satisfying. Petraglia and Rulli once again display their gift for bringing the texture of reality to family drama, for creating people and situations that involve us completely. “My Brother Is an Only Child” is not the only film that does this, but it’s a product that’s in shorter and shorter supply every year.

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kenneth.turan@latimes.com

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“My Brother Is an Only Child.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes. In Italian with English subtitles. Playing Laemmle’s Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A., (310) 477-5581.