In late nineteenth-century Turin, at a textile mill laborers clock in 14-hour days, increasing risk to life and limb, for little pay, no benefits. Organized by a socialist, a former schoolteacher from Genoa who is fleeing authorities, the workers strike. Professor Sinigaglia is certain the strikers will prevail. He sees righteously; but the Professor is […]
Daily Archives: July 21, 2008
Although the combination of profuse dialogues and the declamatory style in which they are routinely delivered can induce a migraine, Kira Muratova’s Nastroyshchik, from Russia and Ukraine, is a dark, dazzling comedy about the dire fate into which the former Soviet Union has fallen in the wake of the nation’s collapse. Nastroyshchik derives from stories […]
I have just added the following entry to my list (which you will find elsewhere on this site) of the 100 greatest films from Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. Franco Piavoli’s Il pianeta azzurro compresses a cycle of the four seasons into a day and a half in a rural setting. Time passes, bringing changes; […]
In a bucolic Italian village, Castellaro, Franco Piavoli’s Voices through Time (Voci nel tempo) records a cycle of the four seasons that, as readers of poetry know, shimmers at once with both the mortal human round and the eternal condition of spirit, that is, the cosmic permanence encompassing this round. What we witness are the […]
Dennis Grunes 