Fiorile

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.

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.

The title of "Fiorile" refers to the month of "Floreal" (month of flowers), a month from the French Republican calender that was used in France from 1793 to 1806. The month lasted from April 20 to Mai 19.

The film "Fiorile" is about the concept of the original sin. A theft in the Napoleontic age gives the Benedetti family wealth and power, but is also responsible for the fact that they are hated and called the Maledettis (the cursed).

The scene of the theft, or more precisely the scene of the night thereafter, is one of the most beautiful of the film. Jean, a soldier from Napoleons army leaves the treasury he is supposed to guard unattended because he is making love to a local girl. Meanwhile the brother of the girl steals the treasury (no preconceived plan!). That night Jean has to stay on the village square. He will be sentenced to death unless the thief wil return the treasury under cover of the night (and with no penalty). The scene following is really memorable, with a glimpse of hope flashing up in Jean every time he hears a sound, only to be disappointed when it turns out to be an animal.

"Fiorile" is not the best film of the Taviani brothers. The reviews at the time of release were a bit disappointing. With hinsight it is however their last good movie (with the possible exception of "Caesar must die" (2012) which I didn't see). The Tuscan landscape is beautiful, the cinematography is good and the Taviani brothers are born storytellers after all.

I really enjoyed this movie, and am ever so happy I taped it at the time it ran on TV. The great thing about this movie is that it is so normal. A family driving to granny and telling the kids a story on the way. And then later how the kids are playing and weaving the story their parents told them in their play. I far prefer European films like this to the ones we get here from the states. Why, you wonder, well if this was made in Hollywood, an escaped gangster would have come along to steal the treasure and father would have taken revenge or something like that... No, the only thing that is a petty is that movies like this are not distributed main stream, but only in arty farty circles. So most movies like this will never reach main stream audience, or even will be distributed outside their originating country. I am pretty sure there are a lot of movies that are great, brilliant movies, but I will never get to see them, because of the distribution.

Pieter