Le Quattro Volte (2010)
- Details
- Written by T. Rake
Goats are movie stars, too. This mesmerizing film wordlessly (not silently) brings you into the world of the herd with bleats and bells punctuating the drama. The humans in this film provide only contrast and context for how the world is controlled and codified. The goats are largely unconcerned throughout. However, if there is a concrete block a group of young kids could try to knock each other off of, then it becomes much more serious.
Director Michelangelo Frammartino sets up long scenes where the goats do what they do best. Meander. Chew. Stare. Where he succeeds is in relaying a pace, nay a lifestyle, in a foreign land unconcerned with the nuisances of social media and the interruptions of cellular communications.
While the movie supposedly has something to do with Pythagoras, a truer tale of the alienation of modern life could not be told. Set entirely in Calabria a small farming village (possibly older than the pyramids) on the southernmost boottip of Italy, it is transformational in that it refocuses life as it is projected on the other side of the camera obscura and we are left wondering which side is inverted and which is real.
This movie is a trance dream for fans of ruminants, forests and landscapes.