Pâques sanglantes

"Non c'é pace tra gli ulivi" (No peace under the olive tree) is a powerful neorealist film. It was filmed in natural locations in the mountains of Ciociaria (the homeland of Giuseppe De Santis).. The landscape and people mix harmoniously together in this film that tells a story as old as humanity itself. The rocky mountainous landscape adds an epic scope and an exquisite beauty to the film.

"Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi" tells a story of revenge and solidarity – A shepherd, Francesco (Ralf Vallone) after spending three years in the war (World War 2) and still more three years in jail, returns home. His old parents and sister had been left by themselves. A unscrupulous shepherd, Bonfiglio (Folco Lulli) had taken advantage of the state of chaos generated by the war to steal the flock of sheep that belonged to Francesco's family, leaving them destitute. And Bonfiglio doesn't stop at that – by way of threats and cajolery he forces Lucia, Francesco's fiancée, (Lucia Bosè) to marry him. Bonfiglio is a man on the rise, slowly imposing his will on the other shepherds – stealing, threatening and using force when necessary.

Francesco on his return finds his family completely impoverished, barely having enough to eat and his fiancée taken away by Bonfiglio (the same man that had stolen his family's flock of sheep!). But Francesco is not one of those men who put up with trouble without taking action. What will he do?

As you can see by my introduction, the story of the film is highly melodramatic, and the acting is also a bit exaggerated, but strangely enough this doesn't spoil the film, it rather stresses the strength of the story. The actors, the landscape and a story that seems to be taken from a Greek tragedy lend this film something almost cosmic and also very humanistic. Giuseppe De Santis's passion for his homeland and its people are shown in full force in "Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi".

Certainly "Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi" may not be not as truthful to reality as other neorealist films. Professional actors star in the main roles. Raf Vallone as Francesco and Lucia Bose (that two years earlier had been elected Miss Italy) could stand up as models for Latin beauty. And even Folco Lulli as the villain doesn't lose his humanity. In fact, one could say that "Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi " stems from the same sources that gave us Homer and Virgil. Following the classic patterns of the old masters, an old story of passion, greed and revenge is told.

The landscape, the dances of the shepherds, the songs, Lucia Bosè's beauty against the backdrop of the steep and rocky mountains of Ciociaria... enough said! "Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi" as well as other neorealist films of the time (for example, the classic "Riso Amaro" also directed by De Santis) caused a deep impression all around the world. Lima Barreto, a great Brazilian filmmaker, showed in "O Cangaceiro", filmed in 1953, that he had learned a thing or two with the Italian neorealist films.

Director Giuseppe De Santis, a committed leftist, was apparently stung by criticism which he received from the Communist Party for the commercial compromises he had made on Bitter Rice, and he resolved to make a properly socialist realist film for his next project. Of course, he ended up making an ITALIAN socialist realist film. Both the characters and the situations are intentionally two-dimensional and archetypal, but everyone throws themselves into it with such passion and emotional conviction that the result is hugely operatic and occasionally mesmerizing.

Lucia Bose, in her first role (immediately before Antonioni starred her in Cronaca di un Amore), is ravishing and almost convincing as a peasant girl forced to her disgust to marry the sadistic local land-owner while her true love must hide in the mountains trying to rustle sheep. Plus, De Santis was clearly intrigued by Hollywood westerns and he repeatedly sets up strikingly archetypal western scenes. I suspect Sergio Leone was inspired by this film when he started the whole spaghetti western craze a decade later, but No Peace Under the Olives plays at a different level altogether.

Why was this film not as successful as de Santis' previous film "Riso amaro" ("Bitter rice" with Silvana Mangano)? She was booked also for this film but got pregnant which made her appearance impossible. This is a similar story about simple local people working hard for their daily bread, but the three leading actors are all professionals, and their performances are not quite natural. They try to appear convincingly local, but there is something stilted about their over-acting. The cinematographic character of this film is very like the technique of the silent films, the characters being given unnecessarily monumental emphasis, while the great merit of the film is the many various local scenes of dancing and making merry, the bother about all the sheep, there are goats also adding to the confusion, the local colours are excellent and oustanding, but the melodrama is exaggerated - you miss here the Vittorio de Sica human touch, to make the drama gripping. Instead there is just a provisional happy ending.