In the Highest of Skies
In the Highest of Skies
Directed bySilvano Agosti
Written bySilvano Agosti Francesco Costa Stefano Rulli
Produced bySilvano Agosti
CinematographyClaudio Tondi
Edited bySilvano Agosti
Music byNicola Piovani
Release date
  • 1977 (1977)
LanguageItalian

In the Highest of Skies (Italian: Nel più alto dei cieli) is a 1977 Italian surreal drama film co-written and directed by Silvano Agosti.

Plot

Cast

  • Livio Barbo as Sandro
  • Edy Biagetti as Luigi
  • Gisella Burinato as Camilla
  • Giorgio Bonora as Andrea
  • Francesca Cacciolati as Vera
  • Clara Colosimo as Teresa
  • Francesca Romana Coluzzi as Maura
  • Alberto Cracco as Italo
  • Francesco Costa as Fausto
  • Jorge Krimer as Adelio
  • Franco Lotterio as Giulio
  • Marcella Michelangeli as Eugenia
  • Fabienne Pasquet as Rosa
  • Antonio Piovanelli as Carlo

Release

The film premiered at the 35th Venice International Film Festival .[1]

Reception

Film Comment's critic Chris Shields noted: "for a film that takes place almost entirely in an elevator, [...] In the Highest of Skies is surprisingly dynamic in its camerawork and treatment of space". He remarked the similarities with Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel, even if "Agosti's characters are not only figuratively trapped but physically confined", and wrote: "for Agosti, the film is not about salvation in the face of moral transgression but the violence inherent in dogmatic belief. His elevator is the inescapable prison of closed thinking".[2] Similarly, Piero Zanotto from La Stampa also paired the film to Buñuel's works, describing it as "a Bunuel with an added dose of ideological virulence".[1]

Davide Comotti from Cinefilia Ritrovata described it as "an alien film, a black jewel of Italian auteur cinema", with "a minimalist plot, where it is the inventiveness of the screenplay and the creativity of the direction that makes it compelling - and almost suspenseful".[3] According to Italian film critic Paolo Mereghetti the film is "unconvincing", "confused in its assumptions, predictable in its developments, although, with its crazy happening tones, indicative of a particular season of Italian cinema".[4]

References

  1. ^ abZanotto, Piero (7 September 1976). "Bunuel babbo mio". La Stampa. No. 191. p. 13. Retrieved 12 July 2025.
  2. ^Shields, Chris (January-February 2020). "Going Down". Film Comment, Vol. 56, No. 1, Special Issue: The Best of the Decade. pp. 20-2. (Full text via JSTOR.)
  3. ^Davide Comotti (10 June 2022). "L'opera estrema del "ribelle" Silvano Agosti". Cinefilia Ritrovata (in Italian). Retrieved 12 July 2025.
  4. ^Mereghetti, Paolo (2010). "Nel più alto dei cieli". Il Mereghetti 2011. Vol. 2. Baldini Castoldi Dalai. p. 2236. ISBN 978-88-6073-626-0.
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