Record: Maladolescenza Soundtrack
Label: Cinevox Records
Year of Release: 1977
Sounds like: Enrico Simonetti,Sina Azin, Ennio Morricone
Italy
Giuseppe Caruso is a composer and Orchestral Conductor from Italy. Throughout his life, he has worked in the TV business as a sort of Televison Personality at RAI, and has also created songs and soundtracks that always are into the instrumental fields. He was responsible of the score of several films, usually eclipsed by more famous and more mainstream people like Enio Morricone or Nino Rota.
Caruso is well known and respected in the independent film industry in Italy and was behind the score of productions such as ''Kill Johnny Ringo'' and ''Maladolescenza'', which is the Soundtrack that we will gut and describe in this occasion.
Maladolescenza is an Italian film released in 1977, panned by the critics accusing it of deliberated pedophilia and banned in a wide range of countries for the same reason. It depicts the story of three underage rascals living a weird summerish love triangle. The film is kinda disturbing by itself, the people involved are actually young and can amaze you that their parents have given permission to produce such an awkward movie. However, the music featured in it must be cooked apart.
The score follows the scheme of the European and, specifically, the Italian movies of the age: crystalline chords and violins, refined Piano arrangements and vocalizations to provide a human approach, 23 themes that rarely exceed the two minutes.
Regina says: In spite of the controversy caused by the movie, Maladolescenza's soundtrack is a jewel, it reminds us of the best soundtracks from the 60's with that nostalgia and smell of broken heart that people like Luboš Fišer or Evžen Illín were capable to make us feel around, no matter how much you can hate the film, the soundtrack will warm your soul and put you in the place of a naive teenager living a fast love that will end badly. The tenderness, the loveless, the tragedy, the obsession are kinda present through the full record, it won't disappoint you, unless you're a heartless guy who doesn't believe in love anymore
Rate: Extraordinary
Hugo Menanth Says: I was introduced to this movie and its score by Regina who assumed that I would enjoy something like this, and I must say that I did, I have to say that it is not extremely different from other scores of the era that I've heard, but it somehow feels like that. Sweetly similar to things that came after like Durutti Column or the French duet Deux Filles. Ethereal, magic and sunny, ''L' Incubo e il Serpiente'' even have some trip-hop/Portishead tinge. Identificazione makes me think of Christmas season for some reason, red cheeks and nose with a cold sun above, ''Maladolescenza'' (the opening track) brought Loves of a Blond final scene to my mind.
If you have seen many love flicks you will be familiar to this, if you haven't then you will think that it's simply breathtaking.
Rate:Highly Recommendable