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Total Film: The Modern Guide to The Movies

Reviews

Oct 15th 2007 By Total Film

Critics went nuts for this three-hour Italian peasant epic in 1978, handing it the Palme D’Or and nodding sagely as Village Voice über-brain Andrew Sarris declared, “To see it is to be stirred to the depths of one’s soul.” Back in reality, this docu-style opus is never the masterpiece it strains to be, but remains a hidden treasure. It’s sentimental, earnest and at times – like the lives of the four 19th-Century rural families it follows – a long, hard slog. But as the minutes tick by with the rolling turns of the seasons, the life-rhythms of birth, death and nature itself slowly unfold with a quiet, near-mystical profundity. In his most ambitious work, neglected post-war auteur Ermanno Olmi teases irresistible turns from the non-professional cast and sifts through a world astonishingly rich with detail and beauty.