Le quattro volte

As charming and visually captivating as this film may be, it lacks content which at times seems to be filled with shots that are too long or that do not provide relevant elements to the film (besides offering the already mentioned captivating visuals) and that after a while become exhausting. The problem with this film is that it's too long for it's content but if it had been done as a short it would have probably lacked atmosphere.

This extensive use of long lasting shots and static moments at some point stop creating reflection moments and instead create reasons for the audience to grow bored which, to some extent, takes the effectiveness off the ending. Slow paced movies have to work in a particular way so that the audience may remain focused on the plot, to do this, things have to happen within the story presented; that rarely happens here.

So as other reviews mentioned, if the viewer has the desire to have a closer look at the rural Italian life, yeah, they'll find a sort of... well, slow view of what that is. If you're looking for an art-house kind of thing, this doesn't really work either. The real problem is that it doesn't either show enough rural life in terms of a documentary, nor is it deep enough to be a successful fiction film. Cute, but really wasn't able to engage the story.

Le Quattro Volte is a beautiful document. It opens a window on a time, place and people that are very different from modern city life. And yet the cycle man-animal-vegetable-mineral is still ours. While the movie depicts life as it is today in the Italian village (someone is taking a photo with a mobile phone) it could have taken place fifty years ago. The film depicts events at a slow pace, giving you time to absorb the events and landscape. Yet the film is engaging from start to finish. Scenes such as the one where the young goats are playing in the shed or when the dog challenges the boy are captivating, even sitting at the first row in a small art-house cinema.

I saw this film in Norway where it recently came out in the cinemas.

The title refers to the four seasons and the story follows a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. There is a symmetry in the film, and each part focuses on the fate of one individual (a farmer, a goat and a tree, for instance).

The film makes effective use of the beautiful landscape of Calabria, and the old, ramshackle village. The setting is perhaps in itself the main character of the film. Humans are often viewed from above, and we are in a sense getting the "God" treatment.

There is barely any plot or a story to speak of, yet we go through stages of life that are eternal and inevitable - and we are reminded again and again that all things must pass.

There are life-like documentary aspects to this feature. The film is shot in available light with amateur actors and animals that will endear you. The result is breathtaking and inspiring. The sound scape is also rich: it helps create an emotional journey through every chapter of the film.

I can highly recommend this to anyone interested in unusual films with no dialogue or discernible plot, but anyone also will no doubt be captivated by it's gorgeous setting, it's humble characters or the feeling of watching life pass, unfiltered.

I went to see this movie at Renoir-Curzon in central London last bank Monday.

I was with two friends of mine: another Calabrian and a Sicilian. I invited them telling the movie was shot in Calabria, but I was worried the plot wouldn't interest them.

I was wrong, this movie astonished the three of us completely: I was not only fascinated by the beautiful views of the Calabrian countryside, but the idea of mixing philosophic concepts with very basic, rural and remote communities still sticks in my mind.

"Le quattro volte" means "the four times" and the movie gives an interpretation of Pythagoras (who taught and settled in Calabria in the 6th century BC) concept of four successive lives that each of us holds: mineral, vegetable, animal and human.

In the movie there are all the elements of this concept shown in a very poetic and amusing way: we have an old goatherd as human, a kidskin as animal, a tree as vegetable and coal (carbon) as mineral. All connected in a cycle of life and death to symbolise the re-incarnation.

The sound of nature and rural human activities is the soundtrack of the movie, it makes us understand we, as human beings, are not at the centre of the universe, we should be aware of the elements we are part of and live in harmony with them.

All this makes Le Quattro volte an absolute masterpiece: 10/10

"O Lord, you have seduced me, and I was seduced." This, the central sentiment expressed by the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse monastery in "The Great Silence" (2005), was also how I felt on leaving "Le Quattro Volte" (2010).

As with "The Great Silence," one of the most striking features of "Le Quattro Volte" (The Four Times) is its lack of dialogue. However, whereas for some individuals the 169 minutes of near silence in "The Great Silence" was overly taxing, in this shorter, more widely focused film - quietly reflecting aspects of life in an isolated village in Calabria – the Milanese director Michelangelo Frammartino has given us a predominantly visual poem of place, of space, of people and of the passing of time.

Although not overly religious, it is a spiritually orientated film in which we are asked to consider Pythagoras' contention that we must each know ourselves four times due to the fact that we "have four lives within us - the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human".

Therefore within its 88 minute run the small number of central human characters that are featured within it are soon relegated to positions of equality, or of equal vulnerability, before nature. Thus, for example, the goat-herder's animals soon come to the forefront of the film, as do other elements of the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, in order to declare – seemingly – that these other realms also warrant serious and respectful consideration.

An extremely enjoyable and far-from-always-serious film, I found this a beautifully filmed, calming and thought-provoking movie.