A work of art like this deserves high praise because of its humanistic, philosophical, ecological, esthetical and,last but not least, entertainment value. With touches of tragedy and comedy alike, it links + blends nature and culture, emotion and reason, life and death, microcosm and universe in a way which is down-to-earth and metaphysical at the same time.
In a highly recommendable bonus interview the director himself speaks of a moment in the film when "the old shepherd (...) is lying in the grass (...) when an ant starts crawling over his face (...) and the man's face, in close-up, becomes a landscape". It could be added that from the point of the ant, the body of the man (who is actually squatting here, not lying) is perfectly interchangeable with a tree, or a boulder .... (By the way, when was the last time you, pooing outdoors, experienced an ant having climbed all the way up to your face ?) Some other shots may remind you of "sculptures" of Andy Goldsworthy ; elsewhere again the viewer is being forced to explore unthought-of inner proceedings or motives within an evidently insignificant long static shot (Kiarostami-like ?); the sequence of charcoal-making has a strongly documentary character as well as (a tiny little bit of) pathos of the bell-casting climax of Tarkovskiy's "Andrey Rublyov"....
As "Le quattro volte" is not a pure documentary, some scenes were obviously staged, such as the sequence depicting the consequences of the shepherd's loss of his medicine, or the glorious Easter shot starring the dog named Vuk ( which means "Wolf" in some South Slavic languages !).
Great blu-ray from Artificial Eye.
In a highly recommendable bonus interview the director himself speaks of a moment in the film when "the old shepherd (...) is lying in the grass (...) when an ant starts crawling over his face (...) and the man's face, in close-up, becomes a landscape". It could be added that from the point of the ant, the body of the man (who is actually squatting here, not lying) is perfectly interchangeable with a tree, or a boulder .... (By the way, when was the last time you, pooing outdoors, experienced an ant having climbed all the way up to your face ?) Some other shots may remind you of "sculptures" of Andy Goldsworthy ; elsewhere again the viewer is being forced to explore unthought-of inner proceedings or motives within an evidently insignificant long static shot (Kiarostami-like ?); the sequence of charcoal-making has a strongly documentary character as well as (a tiny little bit of) pathos of the bell-casting climax of Tarkovskiy's "Andrey Rublyov"....
As "Le quattro volte" is not a pure documentary, some scenes were obviously staged, such as the sequence depicting the consequences of the shepherd's loss of his medicine, or the glorious Easter shot starring the dog named Vuk ( which means "Wolf" in some South Slavic languages !).
Great blu-ray from Artificial Eye.