Padre padrone

Vittorio and Paolo Taviani are surely one of the most important Italian directors ever and just like all the great masters they often have their not so brilliant movies, but "Padre Pardone" certainly belongs to the best they ever made. It's all based on a true story and sometimes people tend to forget that there are places that God forget. In an agricultural area in Sardinia some folks pretend it's better to take care of the sheeps rather than scoring well at school. The young Gavino (Fabrizio Forte) goes to his school but one day he's father comes in the classroom telling him that his schooldays are over and that it is time to take up his duty as shepherd. The brothers Taviani are masters in filming the useless factors of the job as we see a young boy who absolutely has no interest in the job he got by his father, and we see some explicit scenes in where the almighty father beat his children. Schoking that's for sure and if the Gavino grows older we see his hunger to learn something (the poor boy couldn't read) as soon as he must enter the world of the army which is in total contrast with the world of the hills where sheep run. The story itself is rather hard to bear and you often shake your head by disbelief but still the Taviani-brothers are opting for a sober and poetic approach of the problem that it looks like you're viewing some touristic documentary of an area that God forgot. "Padre pardone" is certainly the kind of movie that will have both its lovers and enemies but having said that, you know that "Padre Pardone" belongs to the classic section of the Italian cinema that will never be forgotten.

I saw this movie more than 20 years ago, but I have never forgotten it. There is no need for me to repeat what others have said about the plot. Let me just say that the film's use of natural sound is astounding. An illiterate boy is isolated from other people, so he develops a unique understanding of the world's noises. I appreciated the film's critique of paternalism, but even more, I was profoundly moved by the story of a peasant boy who manages to overcome his isolation and fear of his father and learn to read and then to study linguistics.

I am going to buy a copy of this movie for my grandson who is studying film at a university. Despite the fact that he is a young and urban American, I think he will appreciate the humor, the innovative techniques and the themes of this remarkable film.

Based on the true story of author Gavino Ledda, we follow his life growing up on a Sicilian farm where he is subjected to the brutal realism of his father. It all begins when he is taken out of school at a very young age because dad (Omero Antonutti) needs him to tend the sheep and keep them safe from snakes, wolves and bandits! He's barely two foot tall at this stage. This is the template for much of the rest of his childhood as his education is sacrificed to keep them fed and housed. Reaching his adulthood he finds himself manoeuvred into joining the military by his father - a responsibility that rather backfires on the older man as Gavino (now Saverio Marconi) proves not only that he is quite capable of learning - not just the basics of reading and arithmetic, but of understanding the complexities of electrical engineering and radio operation. He decides to return to Sicily after his time in the army, but much more on his own terms and to study at university. Naturally, his disappointed father has other ideas - but can these two men reconcile and Gavino learn to (or want to) forgive his father? Initially, it's really quite easy to loathe the paternal character. Save for one tiny semblance of affection (after a beating) he shows no emotional connection to his son at all. As the film progresses though, it becomes slightly easier to understand that this man comes from a long line of people with little hope, living an hand-to-mouth existence with no education and little belief in opportunity. Is it despite him or partly because of him that Gavino has such an independent spirit? Marconi delivers strongly here and both he and Antonutti sustain the degree of familial tension as both realise that change is inevitable. Change and ageing. I like the indefinite nature of the conclusion - it's all a work in process and one I found quite compelling to watch.

Despite the other good comments here, I was really shocked at the number of others who put in their two cents who hated this movie. I saw it in a theater shortly after its original release, then several times on video in the late eighties. I hadn't watched it again until a couple of nights ago, mainly as a reaction to seeing some of the imbecilic remarks here. It's scary because after seeing the film again I realize that Hollywood has alot to answer for in manufacturing twisted junkfood audience expectatations with their atrociously slick homogenization of already shallow stories, push button audience emotion manipulation... oh, well, you get the idea. People fed a constant diet of McDonalds don't recognize a good steak when they bite into one.

PADRE PADRONE integrates nearly documentary footage seamlessly with a very realistic, often funny, often poignant but never manipulative depiction of what it's like to grow up the first born son of a nearly impoverished Sardinian shepherd. The beatings the boy receives from his tyrannical father are convincingly shown but in such a way that, especially if you've ever been on a set or involved in filmmaking, you can see that the punches and slaps could be easily pulled without the audience knowing it. The boy's struggle as he grows into a man to express himself and learn how to read and write, no matter how fierce his father's opposition, is truly inspiring because it is so matter-of-fact, so intense but without a shred of the narrative tricks (such as treacly music cues) that Hollywood would pull to needlessly manipulate cheap audience emotion.

There's one scene right near the end just before the young man leaves home again for the final time where he has to go to retrieve the family suitcase from under his parents' bed. His angry, powerless dad sits on the edge as his son gropes under him for the suitcase. The two have already come to blows and life-threatening words. Suddenly the young man sinks his head against his father's leg in a brief second of weary contradictory affection. His father instinctively moves his hand to, at first, comfort the boy. But before his fingers can even touch his son's hair he is possessed by temper and raises his hand to strike him instead. However, we don't see if he strikes him or not because the Tavianis cut to black then we next see the son leaving town, going on to his destiny as a linguist and bestselling writer. This simple scene is one of the most unbearably moving in any film from the last thirty years and indicative of the general excellence of the entire movie. The Taviani brothers have made many other good films from ALLONSANFAN with Marcello Mastroianni, through this, through NIGHT OF SHOOTING STARS and the excellent, 3 hour long anthology of stories by Pirandello, KAOS.

Padre Padrone was a film that shocked RTP viewers in the late 1970s, mostly for the visceral way in which it exposed the rude habits of shepherds in the Sardinian highlands, especially in sexual practices with animals.

This film by the Taviani brothers, along with others, such as Ugly, Dirty and Bad, by Scola, are part of the end of Italian neo-realism, that I cannot resist calling hyper-realism, in the sense that it is no longer enough to show the harshness of In reality, we need to look for the most unworthy and grotesque aspects of human condition, in this case the violence, isolation and bestiality of small Sardinian pastoral communities.

Other films had already look at this communities, perhaps even better, such as Bandits of Orgosolo, by Vittorio de Seta, in 1961, emphasizing, in this case, "omerta", the law of silence, distrust, ignorance and extreme attachment to the land, the main source of wealth and power, in these extremely closed rural societies.

I would say that Padre Padrone doesn't add much to Banditi à Orgosolo, other than a certain voyeurism through violence and ignorance.

It's a remarkable film, but I clearly prefer de Seta's Bandits.