I believe the title means Four Stories.
The scene opens with a ground full of smoking holes, reminiscent of lava or geyser vents. The camera pans onto the small Italian village countryside and into a small spartan room where an old man, ready to retire for the night, is mixing something in a glass of water. He is coughing away while stirring the mixture. He drinks it and retires for the night.
He is the hero of the first of four stories; a goat herder making living delivering goat milk to locals. A sweeper of the church pays for the milk with the dirt collected from the floor which she herself has blessed. The old man drinks this dirt as a remedy to his hacking cough every night. The nightly routine is severely disrupted when he one day loses the package in the mountains while still herding. When he realizes it he runs to the church but it is too late. Nine p.m. The sleepy village is already abed. The man dies next morning.
Next story, one of old man's goats delivers a kid. The kid is separated from the mother and the herd and freezes to death in mountains.
Third story is about how the people of this sleepy town, even during the day time, entertain themselves by logging an extremely tall tree. They erect this tree straight up again in the middle of town square. A man scales the tree and shows off his valor when people topple it with him in it.
After the town square show, the tree is sawed off and trucked away by the people who convert the wood into the charcoal for the locals. The process of converting the wood into charcoal was quite interesting. The wood pieces are arranged in a circular shape, thatched with hay, wood sticks and old charcoal bits. Now it looks almost like an igloo, except not of snow. It is ignited from within and the center. Eventually, smoke comes through the vents. That is how the movie had started.
The stories are simple and human. There are absolutely no dialogues. Music is barely audible but very pleasant to ears. When there is no conversation to distract, one notices more details in the film. I could see a red ant crawling on herder's face and he was too old to shake it off his face. The Italian Town is a lazy sleepy town. The countryside is very mountainous full of mists. It is extremely beautiful and picturesque.
I remember David Lean, one of my favorite directors, once telling an interviewer that a good director pans the camera long enough for audience to keep wanting it more but not that long that they lose interest.
The photographer panned the camera long and wide. He seemed to have followed that tenet of movie making to a tee.
I adored this movie. I love the total silence. Because, to me............ silence speaks volumes.
The scene opens with a ground full of smoking holes, reminiscent of lava or geyser vents. The camera pans onto the small Italian village countryside and into a small spartan room where an old man, ready to retire for the night, is mixing something in a glass of water. He is coughing away while stirring the mixture. He drinks it and retires for the night.
He is the hero of the first of four stories; a goat herder making living delivering goat milk to locals. A sweeper of the church pays for the milk with the dirt collected from the floor which she herself has blessed. The old man drinks this dirt as a remedy to his hacking cough every night. The nightly routine is severely disrupted when he one day loses the package in the mountains while still herding. When he realizes it he runs to the church but it is too late. Nine p.m. The sleepy village is already abed. The man dies next morning.
Next story, one of old man's goats delivers a kid. The kid is separated from the mother and the herd and freezes to death in mountains.
Third story is about how the people of this sleepy town, even during the day time, entertain themselves by logging an extremely tall tree. They erect this tree straight up again in the middle of town square. A man scales the tree and shows off his valor when people topple it with him in it.
After the town square show, the tree is sawed off and trucked away by the people who convert the wood into the charcoal for the locals. The process of converting the wood into charcoal was quite interesting. The wood pieces are arranged in a circular shape, thatched with hay, wood sticks and old charcoal bits. Now it looks almost like an igloo, except not of snow. It is ignited from within and the center. Eventually, smoke comes through the vents. That is how the movie had started.
The stories are simple and human. There are absolutely no dialogues. Music is barely audible but very pleasant to ears. When there is no conversation to distract, one notices more details in the film. I could see a red ant crawling on herder's face and he was too old to shake it off his face. The Italian Town is a lazy sleepy town. The countryside is very mountainous full of mists. It is extremely beautiful and picturesque.
I remember David Lean, one of my favorite directors, once telling an interviewer that a good director pans the camera long enough for audience to keep wanting it more but not that long that they lose interest.
The photographer panned the camera long and wide. He seemed to have followed that tenet of movie making to a tee.
I adored this movie. I love the total silence. Because, to me............ silence speaks volumes.
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