Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
31	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	1	2	3	4

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

Posted By: Someonelse

Date: 10 Nov 2021 15:19:54

SD / DVD IMDb

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

Director: Francesco Rosi
Writers: Francesco Rosi (story), Tonino Guerra (story)
Stars: Gian Maria Volontè, Paolo Bonacelli, Alain Cuny

Based on an autobiographical novel by Carlo Levi, Cristo si e fermato a Eboli stars Gian-Maria Volonte as Levi, a prominent anti-fascist author and artist who, during Mussolini's regime was exiled to Eboli, a tiny village in Southern Italy. The government believed Levi's controversial views would fall on deaf ears, but as he spent time in the small pastoral community, the simple wisdom of the peasants came to have a profound impact on Levi, and his beliefs would also impact the people of Eboli.

IMDB - Won BAFTA Film Award + 6 wins

In 1935, a distinguished artist and intellectual turned escorted political prisoner from Turin named Carlo Levi (Gian Maria Volonté) arrives at the railroad terminal station at Eboli for further transportation - first by a series of public buses, then by a waiting automobile dispatched by the regional mayor Don Luigi (Paolo Bonacelli) - into the remote district of Lucania (now Basilicata) in southern Italy where he is turned over to local officials to serve out his sentence of monitored confinement in the desolate town. After receiving a brief and informal (and highly irregular) orientation on the local customs and expected behavior - along with a healthy dose of village gossip - from Don Luigi (who seems more eager to make a good impression on the prominent detained "guest" than to enforce state regulation), Don Carlo is released into the population where his privileged life, medical degree, and progressive thinking seem at odds with the townspeople's stubborn observation of ancient superstitions and outmoded, feudal customs.

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

Resigned to an uneventful and leisurely existence, Don Carlo spends his empty days wandering aimlessly through the provincial town and spending quiet evenings at the boarding house. However, the seemingly predictable rhythm of his idyllic (if not idle) routine inevitably begins to be disrupted when a group of desperate mothers visit him one evening to seek out medical assistance for their ailing children, and soon, word of the non-practicing physician's competency (and above all, willingness to help the destitute villagers) spreads through the insular village. Further motivated out of his inertia by his devoted sister Luisa (Lea Massari), a conscientious physician who witnesses first-hand the inadequacy of health care in the region, Don Carlo moves into his own home, and with the help of his diligent housekeeper Giulia (Irene Papas), begins to occupy his time in his studio and makeshift infirmary, in the process, finds renewed purpose in his state-imposed isolation.

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

A faithful adaptation of artist, physician, and author Carlo Levi's autobiographical novel chronicling his detention and house arrest (confino) in Lucania as a political prisoner during the Abyssinian War, Christ Stopped at Eboli - a figurative expression for the local population's enduring mysticism (that continues to exist despite the peasants' respectful assimilation of the Catholic church) and sentiment of profound spiritual and moral desolation - is a thoughtful and sensitively realized portrait of isolation, resilience, and humanity.

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

Francesco Rosi illustrates the region's austere topography and natural environment through direct and unintrusive camerawork, capturing the author's socio-political meditation on Lucania's isolation and seemingly anachronistic coexistence between ancient and contemporary civilization that (perhaps deliberately) serve to estrange the population from the rest of the nation and, consequently, results in their perennial marginalization (if not, exclusion) by ruling governments. Exploring similar themes of isolation and rural depopulation (specifically, village men who immigrate to America, often abandoning their families) as Theo Angelopoulos within the objective framework of Levi's experiences and observations during his confinement in the remote region, the film transcends the humanist tale of personal redemption to create a haunting, melancholic, and incisive commentary on cultural oppression and indigenous exile.
Strictly Film School

Christ Stopped at Eboli is one of the best movies by Rossi, loyal to his tradition of neorealism. The movie depicts isolated rural-peasant life as an account of an urban intellectual – doctor, painter and a political activist who has been exiled to this remote area due to his political dissent during the Fascist rule in Italy. Not like similar movies in lenght, Crist Stopped at Eboli constantly absorbs audience, probably due to its realist description and selective representation of peasant life which is "frozen in time". The film pushes the audience to contemplate on philosophical aspects of the concept of time and it is heavily imbued with the display of social and political problems.

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

Rosi beautifully describes the destitute of the peasant settlers of this remote and isolated land, their ignorance and apolitical life, the deep rift between these people and state, and the irrelevance of the quasi-comic "victories" of the Il Duce to these people among many other social and political issues. Like Rosi's other movies here again neorealist representation goes along with the combination of documentary techniques and fictional context. Rosi lets the images to speak for themselves rather than the Gian Maria Volente who is in the central role in the movie.

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

In the movie (as it is in the book), the peasant life and urbanity are represented as two alien civilizations and antithesis of each other. These peasants have their own way of life, own customs, own aspirations and means of joy. What is going on Rome or the war in Abyssinia for "regaining the glory of the Rome" does not capture their interest. They are aware of the state through the taxes collected or men called for military service. In his letter, Levi describes the urban civilization as an antithesis of this peasant life which aspired throughout the history to "colonize" it.

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

The Christ Stopped at Eboli also pushes the audience to ponder on the philosophical meaning of history, its relevance nature and meaning. It describes this peasant life as "frozen in history", cut from outside life and lacking the understanding of time that we have. History as we understand is the history of "urban civilization". As peasants are alien to this civilization they are alien to this concept of time as well. In the village you stop counting days, hours as they become more and more irrelevant, there you return and base your life on the natural cycle of life which is based on seasons. In this sense the movie challenges our notion of history which is the history of the "city".

Christ Stopped At Eboli (1979) Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

In this sense Christ Stopped at Eboli is very analogous to Y. K. Karaosmanoğlu's Yaban. Yaban is also the story of a Turkish intellectual war veteran who abandons amenities of Istanbul for the Central Anatolian village with the hope of finding his roots and alleviating the torments of his memoirs. However, to his disappointment he finds himself in an alien peasant "civilization" where he can not communicate to those people, can not be similar to them and can not understand their aspirations. What makes Yaban and Christ stopped at Eboli similar is their approach to dichotomous nature of human civilization and the concept of time. In both novels there is a representation of antagonist peasant and urban civilizations, and a relative concept of time. In both novels there is description of life which is "frozen in time" and alien to urbanity. Indeed the study of Yaban from this perspective can be insightful for the discussions of continuity and change in the History of Mediterranean, as Turkey is widely excluded from such studies. However when you read Christ stopped at Eboli and Yaban what strikes you first is the patterns of similarity in peasant life and experience of the intellectuals visiting these places. They can back both the universality of "two civilizations" argument and lounge duree approach in the Mediterranean area.
IMDB Reviewer