“Would the child you were be proud of the adult you have become?” This is the sign that precedes the beginning of the film, a fascinating question posed by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry a few decades ago. Observing the childish enchantment, so ferociously pure, I realized that around the age of six we are all masterpieces: we are free from any filter, we have not yet learned to let ourselves be influenced by family, by school, by the context, by what it revolves around us. All my life I have wanted to love as I could have loved at six years of age, at that age in which there are no tricks or contaminations of any kind; where there is no doubt about the future, and you think your life will be exactly as you imagine it. However, as Leopoldo and Amanda teach us, we grow up, and as our “child” grows up, he may no longer even want to hug us or, even worse, forgive us. Here Leopoldo loses the innocent vision of himself, of love, and when he is faced with the projection of the boy who was him, he hears an emblematic phrase: “When you become a child, you will understand!”.
Amanda didn’t leave him because he decided to grow up, but because he decided to get old, to abandon his ideals and focus only on values such as money and fame, which have nothing to do with love or life. Leopoldo had made many promises to her as a child, including that of getting married. To win Amanda back, Leopold can only become a child again and fulfill those promises. “How do you go back to being a child when you’re an adult?” This is the film’s second question. Perhaps the only way is to really grow up, to reach that very pure awareness which as children was a spontaneous talent, and which now can only be obtained with reasoning and experience. Often the elderly seem to be children again, and it cannot be a coincidence. It’s like a circle, a roundabout: like in the square, where the life of the film lights up. Piazza Carlo Pedersoli, that’s what it’s called… in an unspecified place, which, like in the best cartoons, or like in 60s science fiction films, is identified in the opening credits to tell this tale. I laugh because I love you, is the answer to the common question “What are you laughing at?”. When laughter is good and healthy, we laugh because we love; we laugh because we feel the need to joyfully express our love. Hoping someone sees us.
The music of I laugh because I love you envelops the film in a spell, and manages to restore exactly the poetry and fairy-tale dimension that I had imagined. The history of the music of this film carries with it the same magic, in fact during the filming there was a particularly lucky encounter with a great artist and dear friend, Giuliano Sangiorgi. With Nicola Nocella we went to visit him in his recording studio and we told him about the film. Giuliano was enthusiastic about it, and the following day he wrote this wonderful piece, which bears the same title as the film, and sent it to me in a test version, with which I literally fell in love. For different reasons it could not have been him to record and sing it, but once again the magic that brings with it this film intervened, and the song was arranged and interpreted by the magnificent voice of Malika Ayane, who made it for her. Hence the idea of involving Malika in the film as well: her character, in fact, arrives like an angel (perhaps she really is!) to resolve a complicated situation. To complete the spell there is the soundtrack that accompanies the entire film, creating a perfect circle of love between notes and images, signed by the extraordinary talent of Claudia Campolongo.
Paul Ruffini