Director/Writer:
Michelangelo Frammartino
Starring: Giuseppe Fuda
Sometimes when I’m not sure
what angle to take on a movie, I’ll do a little research about it and get my
bearings. Sometimes I’ll find that no one seems to have their bearings. That’s
what my research on the Italian film “Le Quattro Volte” led to because the
movie is so good and yet so simple.
The title translates to “The
Four Times”. It seems that’s been interpreted in several different ways by
those who’ve praised this quiet, yet sublime movie. Some have said it was based
on a belief that there are four lives that every soul lives. Some have said the
four lives represented in this movie are the four stages of life. It doesn’t
really matter. What matters is that the movie examines four aspects of life in
a small Italian village that are linked by the ways in which they affect each
other.
The movie starts with an old
goat herder, who wards off his sickness with dust collected off the floor of a
church. His passing brings us to the life of a goat. I would’ve liked to see
more of the goat’s life. I wonder if goats watch this movie and scoff at the inaccuracies
it depicts about their jobs? The goat’s life leads to a tree, which is used by
the town in a celebration and then burned by some men in a fascinating process
that leads to the final life, that given by the charcoal it creates to warm the
townspeople’s meals and homes.
No comments:
Post a Comment