Fiorile

Driving to visit his ill father in Italian countryside, a father recalls the story of his family for his daughter and son...this unforgettable story of human greed and dishonesty and how wealth can taint the spirit is one of the most intense and moving stories i've ever come across with... juxtaposition of present and past in the same sets and the multiple roles characters play is as precious as the script and photography.... don't miss this one even if you're too busy.

The Tavianis astonished me with Kaos (1984) and The Night Sun (1990). With Fiorile they have stolen my heart.

I cannot approach the statement I have just made logically. I can't tell you why I yearn to hear my mother play Grieg's Waltz (from his Lyric Pieces) more than any great player play one of the complicated masterpieces. There is something about ingenuity and virtuosity and flawlessness that is besides the point.

Fiorile is cosmic and sweet.

Its flaws are what makes it beautiful.

The story is about a family who curse themselves down through the generations themselves by stealing treasure and causing an intolerable injustice. But the wealth of the film is in the Tavianis ability to create heightened moments, full of nostalgia for times and places you never knew.

Like all the Taviani Brothers films, this one looks great, but it is rotten to the core with false romanticism, and coincidences heap upon each other in some facsimile of a "story". In actuality, this is really just a sentimentally cheap tear jerker posing as an intellectually distinguished art film.

If you've been looking for a great story, beautifully told, watch this movie. Like many Italian films, it portrays truths that are absent the linear, "everything has to pay off" American cinema. The story drifts in and out of different epochs with clever transitions that would make David Lean jealous. The actors are uniformly excellent with special praise owed to the exquisite Galatea Ranzi.

This is a film that can be seen again and again and enjoyed each time for the new discoveries and pleasures that it brings.

While taking an ethics course in undergrad, I mentioned instances of atrocities committed by people's ancestors and how the descendants try to atone for it. The professor noted that a person is not responsible for bad things that their ancestors did, no matter how hideous.

This topic is a large part of the subject matter of the Taviani brothers' "Fiorile", where a family visiting a relative discusses a curse placed on the family for a misdeed during Napoleon's invasion of Italy 200 years earlier.

We get this moral conundrum as well as some great shots of the Tuscan countryside. This is definitely a movie that you should check out if possible. I don't know if it's on any streaming service, so you'll have to look in neighborhood video rental stores (there's bound to be at least one in your city). In the meantime, I hope to see more movies from the Taviani brothers.