The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)
Director: Ermanno Olmi
Writers: Ermanno Olmi
Stars: Luigi Ornaghi, Francesca Moriggi, Omar Brignoli
Runtime: 186 minutes
Plot: The life inside a farm in Italy at the beginning of the century.
Review: The film covers approximately a year and focuses on the members of three peasant families who live a communal existence on a large estate owned by a landlord who, though a resident, could not seem more absentee if he lived in Southern California.
Mr. Olmi, who is his own cameraman as well as writer, director and editor, moves through these lives in the manner of someone remembering a long-gone past. The quality of the performances of the huge cast is staggeringly good. The faces are beautiful without being pretty. You may be particularly taken by some of the children, all of whom look a bit underfed and undersized, and by the relationship of an especially tiny little girl and her ancient grandfather, who grows tomatoes by his own secret formula. Near the end there's a sequence that more or less exemplifies Mr. Olmi's method. It's a day-long trip by river boat to Milan where a young farm couple, on their honeymoon, witness a series of violent street demonstrations and never once question the reasons for the unrest. Politics are beyond them, though not Mr. Olmi.
Reviewed by Mohaiminul Islam
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