Ricordati di Me: The Individual and the Community

The movie Ricordati di Me is an Italian film about an upper-middle class family whose bonds begin to disintegrate because everyone is so focused on themselves rather than on keeping the family together. Although being a foreign film, it has a powerful universal message that speaks to everyone. An interesting concept that is adressed in the film is that of the individual vs. the community.

We see in Ricordati di Me that the individual and the community are constantly at odds with one another, because throughout the film the community aspect of the family is lost; it is merely a group of individuals living together. In order for a family to stick together, it has to have one communal mind focused on strengthening their ties, which in turns means a sacrifice of one's individuality. In the Ristuccia family, the members place far more emphasis on their individuality than their community. With Carlo, he keeps his job which he hates to support his family, but when he finally quits his job and runs away with Allesia, we see he is finally happy. His family, the community, is holding him back from being an individual. He is unhappy with his family life. This can be interpreted to mean that we find our greatest happiness when we work on ourselves rather than when we work on one another.

At the end of the film, Valentina, Guilia, and Paolo all acheive their individual goals; Valentina is on TV, Guilia is acting, and Paolo has found a girlfriend and acceptance. In the final scene, when they take their family photo, we see that they're all genuinely happy. Carlo, however, has difficulty smiling for the camera; he feels he's once again tied down by family life, keeping him from acheiving his goals.

The director, Gabriele Muccino, portrays the necessity to be an individual in order to be happy. At the beginning of the film, we see the family cannot stand to be around one another, and they all have their own self interests and goals that are separate from a family communal mind. But we also see instances in which the community takes precedence over the individual, namely when Carlo is hit by a car, and his family is waiting for him and staying by his side. This could be interpreted to mean that tragedies are what bring communities together, because in times of distress people are rarely self-reliant.