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Forever Mary was based on Aurelio Grimaldi's novel Mery Per Siempre, which was also the original Italian title of this powerfully gripping film. Michele Placido plays an idealistic teacher who goes to work at the Rosapina School, a hellhole boy's reformatory. Though almost overwhelmed by the hopelessness and pessimism surrounding him, Placido tries to introduce his classroom of habitual troublemakers to the glories of poetry and history. Some of the more intelligent students begin responding, but the system in which they are trapped is a crushing, debilitating one. Nearly defeated, Placido is about to ask for a transfer, but changes his mind upon realizing that he has come closer to reaching his charges than any of his predecessors. Offering no easy answers, and populated with some of most realistically pathetic hard-case types you're likely to see in a film of this nature, Forever Mary somehow ends on an inspiring (or at least hopeful) note. Filmed in 1989, Forever Mary received an American release three years later.