‘Rose Island’: Fun Italian Film On Netflix Based On A True Story

Netflix
NFLX
released a new Italian comedy, Rose Island (L’Isola delle Rosa), on December 9. This is a fun comedy directed by Sydney Sibilia based on the true story that shows that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.

If you feel like escaping to the warmth of an Italian island for two hours, then this a film for you. It is a fun light comedy that unfortunately feels a little too long.

Set in 1968, Rose Island tells the story of Giorgio Rosa (Elio Germano), a newly graduated engineer, who decides to build an island off the coast of Rimini with the help of his friend Maurizio (Leonardo Lidi). Giorgio seems to have constructed his own paradise, away from rules and laws. However, the Italian government decides that Giorgio’s idealistic island is Italy’s Number One Enemy, after they hear of Rosa’s application to the United Nations for his island to become an independent state.

Rose Island opens, away from Italy’s sunny beaches, in a snow-covered Strasbourg. Giorgio Rosa has been waiting for days for his case to be considered by the Council of Europe. The French diplomat, Jean Baptiste Toma (played by François Cluzet) only decides to hear Rosa’s case after seeing the United Nations seal on his folder. The film illustrates everything that Rosa recounts to Toma and subsequently the Council of Europe to gain independence for the island he built.

Giorgio is an eccentric engineer, who feels misunderstood. His parents no longer speak to him, and his ex-girlfriend, Gabriella (Matilda De Angelis who stars in The Undoing), is about to get married to another man. After getting fired from his job—ostensibly on the grounds that he was daydreaming on the job instead of paying attention, causing quite a severe accident to occur—Giorgio hatches a plan to build his own island, following the style of rig platforms in open waters.

Giorgio asks his best friend, Maurizio, who works on his father’s shipyard, to come help him construct the island off the shore of the Rimini coast, in international waters, outside of Italian jurisdiction. Maurizio, who is embezzling his father’s business, uses the money for the materials to build the 400 square-meter platform. After welcoming a castaway (Alberto Astorri), a stateless German club promoter named Neumann (Tom Wlaschiha), and then eventually a pregnant teenager Franca (Violetta Zironi), the island soon becomes party-central for vacationers on the Italian coast. Young people flock to the island to party away from rule-bashing prying eyes. The island becomes a great tax-free business.

But, as winter approaches, the team see that the party will soon die down. Giorgio still maintains his dream of living somewhere away from rules or laws. He decides to apply to the United Nations to become an independent island. He designates himself as president, with his four castaways all becoming ministers. Esperanto becomes their national language, and they design their own stamps.

However, as soon as the Italian government hears of this through an embarrassing phonecall from the UN, they employ every possible tactic to dismantle the Rose Island. When the Italian start threatening to destroy the island, Giorgio goes to the Council of Europe for help.

This is a fun Italian comedy, that becomes even more intriguing once you know that it is based on a fascinating true story. The only real flaw to this film is that it stretches too long, and so it feels as if it dwindles away just before the end. It is nonetheless an enjoyable film to escape to, and makes you wonder about this possibility of creating one’s own micronation with no rules.

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