Sicily!

"Conversazione in Sicilia" by Vittorini is one of the most interesting books of Italian literature from the 1st half of 20th century (in 1950 an edition with wonderful b/w pictures by Luigi Crescenzi was published: a real gem). The novel consists basically in dialogs between the protagonist, Silvestro, and people he meets on his voyage to his native country, Sicily, that he left years ago to live in Milan (and not in New York, as the orange seller at the beginning of the movie believes - with Silvestro indulging him in the error, by pretending he's an immigrant coming back). The dialogs oscillate between vivid descriptions of past events and philosophical considerations on good and evil or on man and world (like in the stunning dialog with the knife grinder, which seems to come out of some ancient tragedy). In the movie, however, the really bad acting spoils completely the text. If you use non professional actors, you can't expect that they will be able to render convincingly such a complex, multi-layered text as the one by Vittorini. While watching, I wondered the whole time, whether the bad acting was due to the actors' inability in memorizing their lines, to their absence of training, to their not being professionals, or to the directors' will to produce a sense of estrangement (for which I couldn't see any reason - neither artistic/aesthetic, nor textual/political). It was like they were reading the text for the firs time, without knowing where exactly to make a pause. They would stop a sentence abruptly just to re-assume it by adding a final word, as if they had just remembered that they forgot it. Again, if this was done willingly, the result was extremely annoying. The filming itself seemed to be the work of non professionals - even if the directors are indeed professionals: long takes from a running train or slow takes of a landscape with a city, with no particular artistic or aesthetic value, just something everyone holding a camera could do with no particular effort. They did nothing to conceal the fact that they were filming in present Sicily (when the train leaves Catania, you see ugly modern buildings and a freeway), even if the text is so obviously connected to the Thirties (starting with the prices and the references to the War, which is evidently WWI). I had the whole time the impression of someone deciding to make a movie by taking his/her cam-recorder and asking some friends to do the acting without rehearsals. As much as I love Vittorini's book, I really hated the movie.

Beautiful historic documentary of the life in Sicily during the 30ies.

Stunning images on land, people and houses.

The majority of actors are villagers of Sicilian villages.

They speak in dialect, so it is difficult to understand the movie without subtitles. Central part in the movie are the oranges, that nobody wants to buy.

I saw the movie ten years ago and since then I didn't have occasion to saw it again. When I first saw the movie I also thought it is boring. I needed more years to understand that this is a great movie.

Hope everybody would get the chance to look at it, till the end.

What we remember is the form: black and white (very bright - probably the Sicilian sun), fixed shots and a few pans, actors declaiming a text (taken directly from the original novel), 4/3 aspect ratio, no music, a succession of three scenes, reminiscent of theatrical declamation.

This formal research, surely to serve the text and ideas, doesn't touch us. Despite its short running time, the film feels long. Even if the actors' declamation and what they say, what they tell, can make you smile, so radical is the staging bias that it verges on the ridiculous. Interesting and tiring at the same time. Best reserved for theater-lovers.

"A 66-minute Brechtian elocution executed with stone cold precision, Straub-Huillet's SICILY! is a reworking of Elio Vittorini's novel CONVERSATIONS IN SICILY, a man returns to Sicily, his fatherland from New York after a Homeresque absence, encounters a fruit vendor when he disembarks, several passengers on the train (one of whom decries the stink of underclass!), visits his mother and finally engages a conversation with a knife-grinder (a faux-father figure who defies conventionality, he never sharpens knives or scissors). "

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

A Sicilian that emigrated to the United States of America fifteen years ago return to his hometown in Sicily to visit his mother. He has conversations with a orange picker in the train station and then with another passenger in the train. When he meets his mother, she discloses revelations about his childhood and her sentimental life. Last he has a small talk with a knife-sharpener.

"Sicilia!" is a boring movie about the homecoming of a man after many years living abroad. Along his journey back home, the situation of the unsophisticated Sicily is disclosed through his conversations with his countrymen. This low-budget black and white film might be interesting for people from Sicily or from First World Countries, but I found it dull and painful to watch. This movie was released in Brazil on VHS by Cult Films Distributor. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Gente da Sicília" ("People of the Sicily")