Ermanno Olmi-L'Albero degli zoccoli (1978)

The life inside a farm in Italy at the beginning of the century. Many poor country families live there, and the owner pays them by their productivity. One of the families has a very clever child. They decide to send him to school instead of make him help them, although this represents a great sacrifice. the boy has to wake up very early and walk several miles to get to the school. One day the boy's shoes break when returning home, but they do not have money to buy other. What can they do? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077138/plotsummary)



The majestic simplicity and dignity of this film make even the best contemporary films seem trivial and stillborn by comparison. Loved by sensitive audiences and critics alike, Ermanno Olmi's movie describes incidents in the lives of four families sharecropping in Lombardy at the coming of the twentieth century. Olmi's extraordinary command of imagery, movement, rhythm, and lighting conveys a potent nostalgia for Earth and the family of man



There is a scene in which images of a father carving clogs for his shoeless boy are intercut with the lives of the farm families. The music accompanying that scene is a Bach organ chorale. The effect is almost sacramental and entirely overwhelming and may be one of my favorite scenes in all cinema. That scene alone is worth more than all the digitalized special effects, car crashes, ocean liner sinkings, and the deafening Dolby vapidity of so much of the inane junk embraced undiscriminatingly by so many. If they only had the eyes to see, ears to hear, and the soul to love this wondrous work of art!



After the film is over, you walk out into the world and your life has changed in some fundamental way. You actually experience colors and shapes and smells afresh, as though you've re-emerged into a different universe



This film really surprises. It is long and detailed, yet, it is amazingly suspenseful. The quiet sturdy look at rural life in Italy manages to accomplish the amazing feet of truly "being" a film of "the oppressed" rather than a mere analysis of "the wretched of the earth". Olmi's direction of the non-professional cast is superb and the film is beautifully shot and edited.


You will see the beautiful landscape, the authentic settings, period costumes and props that give one the feeling of being there! Set in 1979, in color, director Olmi's most popular film has received the prestigious Palm d' Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The use of nonprofessional actors, the poverty, day to day struggle against society, usually filmed on location places it into Italian neorealism film category (www.amazon.com)


The focus of the wooden clogs is just a fraction of the story we are told. Several families are portrayed here, and they endure turmoil, grief, religious dedication, devout faith, competition, a miracle and, ...a little fun. (www.amazon.com)


The main event is a family's pride is that their son is able to go to school and he trudges in his wooden clogs and one shoe breaks. The father risks all to cut a tree and shape a new shoe, hence, harsh consequences. Several stories are interwoven that include a widow with six children considers putting two into an orphanage, a grandfather teaches his granddaughter how to plant tomatoes to be first in line at market time, and newlyweds take a trip, and other indepth stories. (www.amazon.com)


Yes it is slow, but so was our heritage, not as Italians, but as human beings. It needs to be slow to develop the story of why sharecroppers left families for America, the faith that they were raised with, how interwoven it was in their lives, and how a child is and has been everything to a parent. Not for the testorone driven Arnold mindless, but was one of the best movie going experiences I have ever seen. I love looking at a movie, walking out hours later, and feel as if I really learned something about the people, a place, and the time that they lived in. This movie was breath taking. Yes it is slow, you have to earn it, but breath taking. (www.amazon.com) nevertheless.




Rapidshare.de (17 * 100 MB + 10.89 MB)

http://rapidshare.de/files/31273574/Olmi-zoccoli.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/31275141/Olmi-zoccoli.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/31276709/Olmi-zoccoli.part03.rar
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http://rapidshare.de/files/31287692/Olmi-zoccoli.part08.rar
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http://rapidshare.de/files/31299311/Olmi-zoccoli.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/31302385/Olmi-zoccoli.part13.rar
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http://rapidshare.de/files/31320335/Olmi-zoccoli.part15.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/31328258/Olmi-zoccoli.part16.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/31335683/Olmi-zoccoli.part17.rar
http://rapidshare.de/files/31336528/Olmi-zoccoli.part18.rar

(Password-www.AvaxHome.ru)

Links to my first 65 movie posts can be found here :
http://rapidshare.de/files/31474274/FNB.47-Avax-RS-links-65_Movies.rar.html

66 Andrzej Wajda-Ashes and Diamonds (1958) http://www.avaxhome.ws/misc_and_web/ashes_and_diamonds_by_wajda.html
67 Eric Rohmer-Ma nuit chez Maud (1969) http://www.avaxhome.ws/misc_and_web/maud_by_rohmer.html
68 Henning Carlsen-Hunger ('Svält') (1966) http://www.avaxhome.ws/misc_and_web/hunger_by_carlsen.html
69 Ermanno Olmi-L'Albero degli zoccoli (1978)