Als die Zeit stillstand

IL TEMPO SI E' FERMATO (TIME STOOD STILL) is a sensitive little story and Olmi's first feature film. It is set in a mountain hydroelectric station in wintertime. A young man assigned to work there gets to know and appreciate the older caretaker whose ways are so different from his own. The film is very visual and has hardly any dialog. It achieves, as do so many of Ermanno Olmi's later films like IL POSTO, THE FIANCES, THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS, and CAMMINA CAMMINA a sense of "mystical humanity", whereby mundane events reverberate with a kind of luminous dignity.

A dam is under construction high up in the mountain. It is winter, and the construction staff has gone down to pleasanter temperatures, but a couple of staff are left behind, on rotational shift, to keep a tab on the health of the construction and machinery during this time. One of them leaves, but the replacement had his own, or his wife's problem, the next generation had decided to arrive a couple of months early. A young man volunteers to take his place, not on a pure altruistic motive. He had an exam, in the spring, and the town-life doesn't let him concentrate on the studies, so he chooses the peace and quiet of the solitude. Of course he doesn't realise that the life there would be so tough and perilous. And in addition, he has a problem, even in that temperature, he insists on non-alcoholic beverage (in fact milk). The old man, the regular is taken aback, and is curious about the new recruit, but he adjusts well, and is almost paternistic to the young man. The young man, in the beginning, treats it as adventure, till a snow storm makes him realise the perils, and also the risks that are run, just in case one meets an accident or even gets sick. In that one night, he realises that it wasn't what he thought, and grows up to face the life, like a mature person, rather than escaping from challenge that life throws in. Though it has some sort of generation gap, but it is taken more as a matter of conversation, not a clash. None of the two treats the other as either "out-dated" or "Green-horn", though they talk about the two generations. Not much of a plot, but it has packed quite few things in it.

A little known masterpiece and Olmi's first feature, the film takes place in the snowy mountains of northern Italy, where a tough old-timer of a guard and a fresh-faced young student keep watch over the construction site of a partially built dam during the winter. Forced to live at close quarters in a tiny workers' shed and cut off from the world below with little to do, the ill-matched couple are at first taciturn and mutually suspicious. When a sudden snow storm cuts their power supply and threatens to demolish their rickety wooden hut, they find themselves thrown together in a fight for survival. Shot in wide-screen black and white, with hilarious visual gags and spare but amusing dialogue, the film develops into a moving testament to the common humanity bridging the generations.