Martin Eden

Pietro Marcello transposes Jack London’s novel from California to Italy in a sweeping, ravishing adaptation which creates a grand metaphor for 20th century Italian society.

The film traces Martin's love affair with the pursuit of individual advancement. Like capitalism, it's seductive.

In Italian star Luca Marinelli, he's cast a true-blue matinee idol as the tortured hero: in an extraordinary performance that matches brute physicality to soulful interior yearning, he carries the film on square shoulders.

Pietro Marcello’s intelligent film adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel is far from inconsequential. It takes seriously the dilemma of what class relations might now mean in an age that is characterised as post-industrial.