The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
A Film by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
DVD5 | IMG | PAL 4:3 | Cover | 01:42:44 | 4,03 Gb
Audio: Italian AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Art-house | 15 wins | Italy
A Film by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
DVD5 | IMG | PAL 4:3 | Cover | 01:42:44 | 4,03 Gb
Audio: Italian AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Art-house | 15 wins | Italy
In Tuscan lore, the evening of August 10th is la notte di san lorenzo (the night of the shooting stars). Each of these stars is believed to grant one wish. In this celebrated film by Italy's Taviani brothers, a woman asks for the words to tell her son about that same night during the last days of World War II. The Nazis occupied Italy and the fascists had mined her small Tuscan village of San Martino. Skeptical of the fascists' promise that all peasants will be safe in San Martino's cathedral, a group of villagers opt to leave and search for the Italian partisans and advancing American forces. Among those to depart is the woman, then only six years old. La Notte di San Lorenzo is the story of the villagers' remarkable exodus, the fate of those left behind, and the partisan struggle against fascism – lyrically intertwined with their thoughts, loves, fears, and memories, as well as the fantasies of a young girl experiencing the tragedy she perceives to be her greatest adventure.
IMDB
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
Named as the Best Film of 1982 by the American National Society of Film Critics, and winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year, Night of the Shooting Stars is another lyrical piece of work from Italian filmmaking brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, who had been directing feature films and documentaries since the 1960s, before gaining international recognition with their 1977 film Padre Pardone.
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
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Set in the small Tuscan town of San Martino in 1944, Night of the Shooting Stars is not so much a war movie as it is a character study, focusing as it does on a cross section of the town’s residents who, faced with their homes being destroyed by the retreating Germans (as part of the Nazis’ ‘Scorched Earth Policy’), and in fear for their own lives, decide to break out in the middle of the night and attempt to seek safety in the arms of the approaching American forces. Unfortunately, the exact location of the Americans is not quite known, and during the course of their uncertain journey across the perilous terrain, they are forced to confront not only starvation and the danger around them, but the evils and demons that exist within their own hearts and minds.
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
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While the film is beautifully looking and overall solidly acted, there is surprisingly little tension given the potential drama of the story’s set-up, and the characters are people we don’t really become too invested in, with their interpersonal relationships and dynamics not really being explored too deeply. The film also makes the mistake of making its narrator, the young Cecilia (Micol Guidelli) something of an obnoxious and spiteful character who doesn’t exactly endear herself to the viewer with some of her acts. It also doesn’t help matters that the characters abandon all their pets, leaving them locked up in a basement where they will presumably starve to death or be killed by the Germans’ trail of destruction. Of course, this could be the Tavianis’ way of illustrating the base instinct for survival that wartime civilians must adapt, but it doesn’t exactly work when you are confronted with such an obvious and clichéd cross section of characters.
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
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Despite its shortcomings, Night of the Shooting Stars does contain some genuinely poignant and poetic individual scenes, which dramatically illustrate the struggles and horror of war, and how precipitous the balance between life and death is during times of conflict. And the Tavianis certainly deserve credit for attempting to inject elements of a Brothers Grimm fairy-tale into their stark storyline, even if the end result is only moderately successful.
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
This film is an eye-opening look at Italian life during WWII. It reminds me of the stories my grandfather tells me of his life in 1930s Florence during the war, "We didn't have money for anything, not even water. The rich had it all." This movie shows us the sparseness of their lives, and the things that they still hold dear. There are scenes in which it is almost hard to watch, we are torn apart by the brutality of the war, but we are entranced by the people who are living through it. We meet ruthless fascists, and caring catholic priests and every moment describes to us the terrifying truth, and the hope that lets one continue. I could not imagine a more realistic, and emotional epic on the subject.IMDB Reviewer
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
Filmmakers Vittorio and Paolo Taviani based La Notte di San Lorenzo on their own World War II experience. Though the two were teenage boys during the conflict, the film is depicted through the eyes of a six-year-old girl and narrated by a grown woman. This fusion of sensibilities – the memories of the male Tavianis, the imagination of the child, and the meditative hindsight of the woman – produces nuances that reflect not only a war story, but also the entire human experience. La Notte di San Lorenzo is about childhood, make-believe, puberty, love, marriage, parenthood, friendship, hope, aging, loyalty, fear, desperation, loss, and death. It appeals to universal emotions that transcend sex and age and delivers unforgettable images that exceed beauty and poignancy: a hasty wedding celebration outside an empty church, a child's silent exchange with a smiling American soldier, a little girl's vision of the partisans as Greek warriors, an exhausted young man fanning flies off his dead friend, and an old widow and widower sharing a bed for the first time. The winner of the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film, La Notte di San Lorenzo, like many war films, is forceful, violent, and distressing. Yet, its focus on humanity suggests that mankind rises above such atrocities. The effect is striking.Aubry Anne D'Arminio, Rovi
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982)
Huge Thanks to fabled.
No More Mirrors.