Dirtylogy
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Gary
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
sevisan
Ettore Scola films were always sentimental, pretentious and self-important, full of laborious gimmicks, big themes and immortal phrases. The ambitions were huge (remember "The night of Varennes", "The terrace", "The family", etc.). Sadly, the achievements were mediocre and inversely proportional to the ambitions. Sometimes, only the actors were bearable and help a little (here Manfredi and Sandrelli, Loren and Mastroianni in "Una giornata particolare").In "C'eravamo tanto amati" we have also big themes, but Risi in "Vita difficile" did first and better. Immortal phrases: "We wanted to change life, but life changed us". Stereotypes: the leftist becomes corrupt and capitalist, the money bring no happiness, the idealist movie critic is too impulsive, etc. Gimmicks: the actors talk to the camera and think aloud, colour and b.w. alternates. Besides, the homages to the Italian cinema are crude and obvious. Scola seems to be blackmailing us: "If you don't like my movie, you don't like Fellini, Antonioni and De Sica".I saw this movie many years ago and didn't remember it. I just got today the DVD via Amazon, I have seen 90 min. of the film and I have thrown the DVD to the wastepaper basket
FilmCriticLalitRao
Sorry for being much too lenient but in these perverse times where everybody is talking of global warming, please excuse me when I say that I just have wonderful praises for this great film. It is great on every front. What is the yardstick by which a great film can be measured ? A great film can be recognized by its inherent ability to make viewers shed some emotional tears and weep inconsolably. This is what this great masterpiece by Ettore Scola did to me. We all loved each other is such a pleasant film that it can be compared to a sweet lullaby. The ease with which the various dramatic events happen is a joy to behold. I am not really sure about this fact but I think that may be French master Claude Sautet must have been influenced by this film when he decided to make a similar masterpiece called "Vincent, François, Paul et les autres".Which one is the better film ? Watch both of them and find out for yourself.
paws-7
When nostalgia meets subtle humor, nonchalance and Italian "bigmouth"-way of expressing ideas, there's where you can find "C'eravamo tanto amati". The emotion is always there, but the smile is never far away.Italian filmmakers (not all, but Scola is definitely one of them)have this lovely way to make sad things seem quite funny (apart of one or two very touching scenes), and funny things a bit melancholic. This film talks to your heart. It appeals to a wide range of emotions, each of them never alone but delicately mixed with others. This story about love, friendship, political involvement, and their evolution (dilution?) through the years could have easily lost itself in drama and self-pity, or in first-degree optimism, which are the two great traps which lots of directors fall in. But Scola is far, far above that. This film is life as it goes. Special mentions to the scenes between Vittorio Gassmann and Giovanna Ralli.
Daniel Wiener
I saw this film as a 20 year old when it just came out in the 70ies and I was fascinated by its vision, humor and tragedy. Now I saw it again, more than 25 years later. Living so to speak at the other end of the plot (the story begins when the four protagonists are around 20 and it ends in their late 40ies) it does not look worn out a bit. The way life constructs and destroys friendship has not been mirrored more intensely in any other film I've ever seen.
