Good surprises are always rewarding, even if they take 10 years to cross your path. Acquired months ago, the film "The Four Times" (2010) had been shelved until I decided to sit and watch it, and the experience has been extraordinary.
Set and shot in Calabria, by Calabrian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammatino, the film was inspired by the philosophical ideas of Pythagoras, who created a brotherhood precisely in a city in the region of Calabria, composed of men and women who practiced asceticism, were vegetarians and believed in metempsychosis or the transmigration of some psychic, spiritual and even physical traits from one being to another, regardless of whether it is between humans, animals, vegetables or minerals, unlike the concept of reincarnation.
Of course, illustrating this requires talent and good execution and, fortunately, director Frammatino reveals himself as an artist capable of producing a composition of four stories, with four "protagonists" that, apparently, migrate from one to another, as the passage of seasons. From a story about an old shepherd, followed by others about a little goat, a fir tree and coal, to finally go back to the origin, may sound like poor dramaturgy, but, on the contrary, it is that transparent progression executed with great skill by natural actors and the technical crew that takes the film to the field of great works.
An economic movie as I have rarely seen, but a rich one in aesthetic value, «The Four Times» is a masterpiece of contemporary cinema of observation and reflection, and a great portrait of nature and human condition, that place it among the best film works that I saw in 2019 and in this decade.
Set and shot in Calabria, by Calabrian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammatino, the film was inspired by the philosophical ideas of Pythagoras, who created a brotherhood precisely in a city in the region of Calabria, composed of men and women who practiced asceticism, were vegetarians and believed in metempsychosis or the transmigration of some psychic, spiritual and even physical traits from one being to another, regardless of whether it is between humans, animals, vegetables or minerals, unlike the concept of reincarnation.
Of course, illustrating this requires talent and good execution and, fortunately, director Frammatino reveals himself as an artist capable of producing a composition of four stories, with four "protagonists" that, apparently, migrate from one to another, as the passage of seasons. From a story about an old shepherd, followed by others about a little goat, a fir tree and coal, to finally go back to the origin, may sound like poor dramaturgy, but, on the contrary, it is that transparent progression executed with great skill by natural actors and the technical crew that takes the film to the field of great works.
An economic movie as I have rarely seen, but a rich one in aesthetic value, «The Four Times» is a masterpiece of contemporary cinema of observation and reflection, and a great portrait of nature and human condition, that place it among the best film works that I saw in 2019 and in this decade.