The mystery of Matteo

He isn't gay. Go to the official site : the director explains he fell in love with Giulia. He says : "He (matteo) falls in love with Giorgia and loses her because of his shyness, because he's afraid of dealing with a relationship that will be difficult". Read it on

http://www.viipillars.com/thebestofyouth/lamegliogioventu/production2.htm

Maybe he's bi, but he's not purely gay.
He's not sick either : his problem is that he doesn't know what his actual problem is !

Share opinions but don't make war !

I think people like jumping to conclusions on a person's sexuality or perhaps homosexuality as the cause of his heterosexual relationship-mishaps. True, Matteo was never shown having an intimate relationship w/ a woman but this does not imply homosexuality/bisexuality at all. He seems troubled by many things, I believe the 2nd poster has it spot on regarding Matteo. You will notice that Matteo has issues w/ intimacy, so it isn't surprising he has a problem expressing himself romantically as it is a very intimate relationship. & despite his confident exterior he seems to be very insecure & unsure about himself, he's never able to make the first move, notice that it was the girl who made all the moves on him, he simply responded. But even then, he couldn't even follow through, Matteo's issues is deeper than mere homosexuality/bisexuality, he was a heterosexual man w/ relationship issues as well as many others. Also, it's my understanding that he finally did find that special something w/ the girl, but for many implied/unknown reasons he just couldn't bring himself to make that step w/ her, he was afraid of many things we're just not privy to.



I had a weird dream last night...
You had yourself a vision.

I see the validity of your questions, but I don't think that there is a total contradiction...I just remembered the scene of his exam, he suddenly decides to quit school, because he entered in a disagreement with the prof, he says something like "i don't feel good here anymore"...his decision to join the army can be viewed as an act of control, even if it means that he would implicitly lose that control...which is not exactly the case, because he is still able to physically hurt people/beat them up etc...it has something illogical to it, as the whole character has a mystery and a charisma that are hard to understand... he is maybe the only character in the movie who is not explaining himself verbally in a direct way at all...when he wants to, or feels liek, he can't, he is not given the chance (in his last scenes with Nicola, when he calls Mirella, when Giovanna leaves him after her short visit at his newly rented apart.) Everybody else is "out there", fighting for something, living for an ideal, taking part in the transforming Ital. society -while Matteo is the hidden persona (his picture, which became the poster for the exhibition captures this trait), but he is governing all others' life on an elementary basis - the father's, the mother's, Mirella, even Nicola and Mirella are his "product" - he has the control, even if he seemed to gave that up by chosing the police and finally, chosing death.

Oh, perhaps I'm a sentimental fool, but I interpreted the necklace a little moer sweetly. The trannie hooker (not just suspiciously mannish - obviously mannish) gives the necklace to Matteo saying it's for his girl. When Mirella finds it, he has plenty of choices what to say - but he chooses to say it's for her, "his girl." It's Matteo consciously trying to make a step towards a positive relationship, trying to respond to the open and effusive nature of Mirella.

And touchingly, she's wearing the necklace in the scene in the police station where she confronts him.

[deleted]

Matteo fought a constant battle between the internal and the external. His suicide was triggered by Mirella telling him that 'you don't choose'. He chooses to defy her, acknowledging his own potential as a reactant or revolutionary, and therefore making his presence felt in this external society by choosing to violently end his own life. We see that Matteo has a great respect for the dead in his fierce protection of the corpse in the Sicilian abattoir murder. He wishes to elevate himself to this level, and perhaps hopes to recognise this same respect from those who he so desperately seeks attention and love.

One second he shuts the windows to the celebrations of the world outside, as he would have typically shut society out for the rest of his life. However, the thought of 'choice' enters his mind at this point and he decides to sacrifice himself to 'the outside', leaving through the window and over the balcony, leaving a potent silence under the shadow of the vacuous firework display. This represents both his final decision on where he stands on interior vs. exterior, and figuratively represents one final physical push to make an impression on the outside world.

'Happiness consists in being able to tell the truth without ever hurting anyone.'

I agree with you, M UFO. Matteo is just unremittingly aware of dangling out there on the existential limb, a condition that most functional people can ignore (most of the time). The futility of life seems to have occurred to Matteo at a very, unfairly, young age. He's too damn smart for his own good. Plus he's clinically, chronically, depressed; this is not fundamentally a reactive condition, but an inborn organic one. Of course it is exacerbated by the things that happen to him, and by the consequences of the things that he does; by his failures and by the unfairness and irreconcilable nature of life; by his losses (of the young soldier, his friend killed by terrorists; by his loss of the young girl he tries to save).

But Matteo's clinical depression keeps him from doing the usual, psychologically self-preserving, papering-over (with the day-to-day trivial fiction of "normal" life) of the yawning abyss. Matteo keeps looking down, and for him there is nothing under him but emptiness. It's why he walks out on his exams. It's why he joins the regimented life of the police force where decisions are not his, and where maybe he'll have the pleasure of dying young. It's why he can't/won't commit to an intimate relationship with another person or to the terror of seeing a child of his own endure what he is enduring (life, that is). It's why he slips over the edge into the fireworks.

Matteo observes people like his brother, Nicola, enjoying life; he knows intellectually that this is possible. But Matteo is Hamlet. He has lost all his mirth-- and he didn't have all that much to lose. The excellent canopy, for poor Matteo, appears no other thing than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors -- even the canopy of sunny Sicily, even in the company of a sunny woman whom Matteo can see should make him happy -- but Matteo lacks the capacity for joy.

Poor man. And psychiatrist Nicola misses the obvious diagnosis, because Nicola sees Matteo as his brilliant quirky brother, not as a patient. Poor Nicola. Matteo needed Welbutrin. Zoloft. Something to blur his too-clear vision.

I think Matteo was unlable to feel. That's all and that why he did what he did.

colbec and other people said that since Nicola was the psychiatrist, he should've seen. He does come out and say that afterwards when he's talking with his sister. He says something like, "I should've been the one to understand,"

I want to be the hero of the day

Like some and not like some i never got a gay or bi sexual vibe or feel about Matteo

i read/skim read all of the comments so far and most have made me think but what i mostly feel about Matteo is that in a way he felt like he had to live up to Nicola... i dont quite remember the first episode and what it was like when he was younger... but in a later episode nicola says to his mother on the boat how he was jealous not of his siblings but of her students..maybe Matteo felt jealous or didnt get enough love from his mother...

and when he joins the army, in the scene where his friend gets hurt he ask someone else is everyone here and safe but he feels bad as the only person he didnt look out for was his friend... then later on we see his friend in a wheel chair but he still seems happy and positive about life...

i didnt know if his mother was cold towards him before his father died but i felt as a result of that she wondered why Matteo didnt visit.

i also didnt really think that he had sex with that person/prostitute it was more like he was giving someone a lift.. either from the police station or wherever..

another reason why i felt he looked up to Nicola was because he used his name ..perhaps feeling Nicola was a better person who he wished he could be like... and when Mirella meet the real Nicola they had an instant connection (even though he did with most women) Mirella.. seemed to look at him like, this was the man i imagined Matteo to be like....


this didnt really say much about the mystery of Matteo more rambling observations......

Matteo is just unremittingly aware of dangling out there on the existential limb, a condition that most functional people can ignore (most of the time). The futility of life seems to have occurred to Matteo at a very, unfairly, young age. He's too damn smart for his own good. Plus he's clinically, chronically, depressed; this is not fundamentally a reactive condition, but an inborn organic one. Of course it is exacerbated by the things that happen to him, and by the consequences of the things that he does; by his failures and by the unfairness and irreconcilable nature of life; by his losses (of the young soldier, his friend killed by terrorists; by his loss of the young girl he tries to save). But the violent rages? The death-defying maniac behind the wheel? The avoidance of the company of others, even loved ones? Chronic depression talking.

Matteo's clinical depression keeps him from doing the usual, psychologically self-preserving, papering-over (with the day-to-day trivial fiction of "normal" life) of the yawning abyss. Matteo keeps looking down, and for him there is nothing underneath but emptiness. It's why he walks out on his exams. It's why he joins the regimented life of the police force where decisions are not his, and where maybe he'll have the pleasure of dying young. It's why he can't/won't commit to an intimate relationship with another person or to the terror of seeing a child of his own endure what he is enduring (life, that is). It's why he slips over the edge into the fireworks.

Matteo observes people like his brother, Nicola, enjoying life; he knows intellectually that this is possible. But Matteo is Hamlet. He has lost all his mirth-- and he didn't have all that much to lose. This most excellent canopy, for poor Matteo, appears no other thing than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors -- even the canopy of sunny Sicily, even in the company of a sunny woman whom Matteo can see should make him happy -- but Matteo lacks the capacity for joy.

Poor man. And psychiatrist Nicola misses the obvious diagnosis, because Nicola sees Matteo as his brilliant quirky brother, not as a patient. Poor Nicola. Matteo needed Welbutrin. Zoloft. Something to blur his too-clear vision.