The locations of This is Life: a journey to the places of the cult film by Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo

The hilarious comedy trio of Aldo Giovanni and Giacomo has created, over the last thirty years, several comedies that have remained iconic in the Italian collective imagination. Così è la vita (from 1998) is undoubtedly one of these, perhaps the most complete, organic and dreamy. The film tells the story of three very different characters who find themselves sharing an unlikely journey. The first is Aldo, a somewhat naive escaped prisoner, the second is Giacomo, a rigid but awkward prison police officer and the third is Giovanni, a melancholic toy inventor.

During a daring escape , Aldo takes Giovanni and Giacomo hostage, and the three embark on a long journey through the Italian countryside. The film unfolds as a sort of existential adventure: along the way the three learn to know each other, to confront their own fragilities and to discover an unexpected complicity. Having exploded in the late 90s, the three comedians divide their time between cinema, TV and theatre, bringing home incredible successes.

The locations they touch are many during all their brilliant whirlwinds of laughter and each time, always with an unmistakable style, they manage to adapt the narrative contexts to the chosen place. If you are curious to discover the settings of their second indelible success, here are all the scenarios in which That's Life was filmed.

Where was it filmed?

To paint this pearl on the road of Italian comedy, we thought of a frame belonging to places in Northern and Central Italy, thus creating a mix of urban and natural settings where the scenography has fully contributed to forging that tone, between the surreal and the comic, that exudes from the film. From time to time, we find scenarios useful for more reflective and poetic moments that together lead to a sort of personal change in each character, making the viewer experience a story that is also highly emotional.

Milan

The first scenes of Così è la vita open with Aldo's escape, which takes place in the famous San Vittore prison in Milan. Immediately after, the setting remains in the city: the first Milanese sequences take place near the intersection between via Domodossola and corso Sempione, where we see the protagonists moving through the streets of the Lombard capital. Another key moment takes place at the corner between via Cesariano and via Canonica, also in the Sempione area: this is where the scene takes place in which the character played by Antonio Catania , a police colleague of Giacomo, is beaten by a stranger, in a situation as absurd as it is comical, typical of the trio's style.

Rome

Many of the scenes set in Rome take place in recognizable locations in the city. Giacomo's apartment, where he lives with his sister and brother-in-law, is located on Viale dell'Università, a quiet residential neighborhood that hosted the filming of the character's family interiors. One of the film's main turning points occurs in Piazza Gian Lorenzo Bernini, where Aldo takes Giovanni hostage, officially starting the crazy journey that links the three protagonists.

Later in the story, we also enter the house of Giovanni, who lives with his wife in via di Villa Pepoli 4, another Roman location chosen for its bourgeois and silent atmosphere. Then there is a very particular scene set in an elegant restaurant: it is the Tenuta di San Liberato , near Bracciano, where Aldo takes Clara for a romantic dinner. Finally, in one of the strangest and most philosophical moments of the film, the protagonists find themselves in a morgue, where they begin to suspect that they are dead. This sequence was filmed inside the former Central Directorate of the Criminal Police – Scientific Nucleus, a cold and impersonal place that fits well with the enigmatic tone of the scene.

Abruzzo

The mountain scenes of Life is Like This were filmed in the evocative Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park , an imposing and silent natural setting that serves as the backdrop to several sequences of the film. In particular, filming was concentrated in Campo Imperatore, a plateau at almost 1800 meters above sea level, perfect for conveying the sense of isolation and loss experienced by the protagonists during their journey.

At a certain point in the story, Aldo Giovanni and Giacomo find refuge in an abandoned cemetery, a scene set in the municipality of Roccaraso, on the edge of the Cinquemiglia plateau . It is a surreal moment, suspended between comedy and melancholy, which fits well with the bare and silent setting of the place. Later, near L'Aquila, the three come across a pregnant woman and in one of the most tenderly absurd sequences of the film, they help her give birth by improvising as obstetricians in the middle of nature. The journey finally ends in Castel del Monte, still in the province of L'Aquila, where the three, now changed by the experience lived together, get on an Ape car to return to Milan. It is a symbolic and sweet closure of a journey that is both physical and interior.

A bad accident during filming

Although the first part of the film seems to take place in Milan, many of the scenes were actually filmed in Rome. Filming of this cult written and directed by the comic trio together with Massimo Venier, Giorgio Gherarducci, Graziano Ferrari and Gino & Michele, began in the summer of 1998, more precisely towards the end of July.

The scenes outside the urban context, as we were saying, instead took place mainly in Abruzzo among mountain landscapes and natural areas of great visual impact. It was during these shots, near Arischia in the province of L'Aquila, that an accident occurred that could have had much more serious consequences. One of the two helicopters used by the crew suffered an engine failure and was forced to make an emergency landing. During the maneuver, the aircraft hit the roof of a parked car, causing injury to one of the actors on board. Fortunately, nothing serious for the person involved, the accident was resolved without serious consequences.