Umiliati

This is one of a series of shorts made by Huillet & Straub that feature the same company of non-professional performers reciting their loosely defined roles in a forest in gorgeous color.

I love H&S's films. I do, of course, recognize why they are difficult for some to embrace. They require a great deal of thought and patience even at their most accessible. This is one of the least accessible films I've seen of theirs. It seems to depict various arguments over the ethics and legality of property relations in different epochs. For most of the film, various characters seem to argue over who can stay on a piece of land and who must leave. In the final sequence, the final residents of a village lament the abandonment of the land by the townspeople. This is a deeply demanding, perhaps overlong, idea driven film. But the loyal and patient viewer is rewarded at the end with compositions of sublime beauty.