The Four Times
Directed By Michelangelo Frammartino
Michelango Frammartino in "The Four Times," a wordless portrait of the cyclical nature of rural life in a tiny, southern Italian town.
The first part of the film centers on an elderly, dying goat-herder. The director spends as much time on the man as the herd, and the silent contemplations of both are equally riveting. While numerous moments evoke smiles, one particularly "awww" inspiring scene comes at the unexpected birth of a baby goat, right after the death of the goat-herder, who is replaced by someone younger but also nameless, as daily routine continues in the community, along with group events like religious celebrations and Christmas gatherings.
There are also numerous, lingering shots of the forests and rocky landscapes (the plants and minerals) of this area not far from the Ionian Sea. It is like watching existence behind the scenes. Frammartino has stopped to smell the roses, trees and fields that not long ago at all made up life as we know it, yet which now has been buried or lost forever under layers of modern, man-made constructs.
We also are reminded that actual recycling happens naturally through, well, the cyclicality of nature. What we are doing today is accumulating noise and junk and moving away from something whose poetry is inherent when we remember to think of it.
In fact, we get so sucked in by the silence and images that the communal gatherings in the small town seem like metropolitan hustle and bustle, and the people with their digital cameras and Ipods aliens visiting from a distant future.
.
Michelango Frammartino in "The Four Times," a wordless portrait of the cyclical nature of rural life in a tiny, southern Italian town.
The first part of the film centers on an elderly, dying goat-herder. The director spends as much time on the man as the herd, and the silent contemplations of both are equally riveting. While numerous moments evoke smiles, one particularly "awww" inspiring scene comes at the unexpected birth of a baby goat, right after the death of the goat-herder, who is replaced by someone younger but also nameless, as daily routine continues in the community, along with group events like religious celebrations and Christmas gatherings.
There are also numerous, lingering shots of the forests and rocky landscapes (the plants and minerals) of this area not far from the Ionian Sea. It is like watching existence behind the scenes. Frammartino has stopped to smell the roses, trees and fields that not long ago at all made up life as we know it, yet which now has been buried or lost forever under layers of modern, man-made constructs.
We also are reminded that actual recycling happens naturally through, well, the cyclicality of nature. What we are doing today is accumulating noise and junk and moving away from something whose poetry is inherent when we remember to think of it.
In fact, we get so sucked in by the silence and images that the communal gatherings in the small town seem like metropolitan hustle and bustle, and the people with their digital cameras and Ipods aliens visiting from a distant future.
.
