L'albero degli zoccoli

I had seen Wooden Clogs about twenty years ago but could remember very little about the film other than it was about very poor Italian peasant farmers at the turn of the century and that 'wooden clogs' somehow figured into the film's plot.

It is one of those films that is seemingly about nothing, but could be about everything. i didn't find its 3 hour length to be a problem. It is almost like watching a documentary about peasant life right down to its hand held camera techniques. It is subtle though. Not the shaky-cam or vomit-cam stuff you see today.

The cast is entirely made up of non-actors. Real peasants. And apparently it was shot using its local dialect, Bergamasque which then had to be dubbed into Italian for the Italian market. Olmi explains in the DVD extras that all of the non-actors did their own dubbing which I have to say is quite a technical accomplishment for amateurs.

The film opens with a farmer chopping the head off of a goose. A little later on the controversial scene depicting the slaughter and butchering of a hog is played out in almost real time. It is very graphic and quite disturbing. But just when I thought you would never want your kids to see this, Olmi cuts to two three year-old peasant kids watching the hog die with unbothered fascination. This is real life on a real farm.

And you can tell that it is done by a proficient butcher and is not a gratuitous add-on for exploitation. It is just something that Olmi has selected to include in the film.

I'd suggest this one for a change of pace.