Três Irmãos

Beautifully directed and beautifully shot film from Francesco Rosi. From the wonderfully framed shot behind the opening credits at the very start I was enchanted and fascinated. A simple enough tale of an old man calling his three sons to his isolated farmhouse following the death of their mother. The three are all at work in the modern world and we gather it is rare that they meet up or visit their childhood home. Contrasts abound between the three and their father and their differing lifestyles. The judgmental judge, the utopian carer for delinquent boys and the militant factory worker (all representing facets of the director's personality, he is said to have claimed) all discuss the way they see the world and more especially their homeland, then being torn apart by assassinations, corruption and union and mafia intervention. Pastoral and yet vigorous with the undercurrents of pessimism and loss of hope and search for love are very well handled and make for absorbing viewing.

"Tre fratelli" is a most evocative film that poses to the viewer fundamental questions of life, relationships, and how both can unknowingly be lost.

Raffaele, Nicola, and Rocco, the three brothers, had emigrated from their hometown in Puglia. Raffaele, the judge, although outwardly sedate, is consumed by paranoiac fear for his life. That fear puts a strain on his marital life. While Raffaele lives in fear, Nicola dwells over his poor marriage. His pain is so terrible not only because he still has feelings for his wife, but also because of Marta, his daughter. As Marta and her father were driving in the car back to Puglia, there was an intense chemistry between the two. The love he felt for his daughter was genuine and pronounced. Rocco, the third brother, is somewhat of a radical. That's almost expected; he runs a reform school, a very tiring job. He clashes with his brother, Raffaele, who fears that he is one of the terrorists that would kill him. "Tre fratelli" is a very ironic title. The brothers are not at all similar. They do, however, have on thing in common. They're all unhappy people.

Donato, the father, is in a world completely different from that of his sons. He's not the most loquacious person. However, he is a man of tremendous faith. He has no part of the Northern/Southern Italian class conflicts. By remaining at home, has retained his values. That's not to say that anyone who moves away loses his values. But, in the brothers' case, they had truly forgotten the "paese" that they had left.

In the film, there was an underlying theme of cultural change. As the boundaries between the North and South became less defined, so would the bucolic life of the South that could so easily impart values upon its people. Marta and Donato's relationship grows out of that nostalgic reflection on days gone by. Marta's presence is crucial. She brings out her grandfather's character, so representative of traditional familial values, which otherwise would have been drowned by the bickering of the brothers. With Donato's flashbacks, it becomes evident that Marta reminds him so much of his deceased wife; both could live their life in a simplistic, yet joyful way. The technique of flashback clearly enriches the message of director Francesco Rosi. Sadly, the viewer becomes predisposed to the feeling that those traditional values will die with time. In one of the more important instances of flashback, Donato recalls the time when he was at the beach with his wife, and they found her ring. In its unadulterated form, that scene conveyed pure joy. The final scene in which Donato held the ring was incredibly symbolic. As he held it, he came to the bittersweet understanding that he had lived his life in search of happiness, had found it. No matter how much longer he had to live, he would know that he had lived a good life. Regional and class conflicts obviously manifest themselves in the relationships of the three brothers. Before they even realized it, they were deprived of the values and maturing experiences that their father treasured so dearly. When they went home to Puglia, they truly didn't go home. That small town had ceased to be their home a long time ago. But, Rome, Turin, and Naples were no longer true homes to the brothers, either. To truly be home, one must first know what he truly desires.

At the end of the mother's funeral, while mourning their mother, it seems as if the brothers understand the essence of their family, as envisioned by their father and mother. Paradoxically, it takes the death of their mother to catalyze a rebirth in the lives of the three brothers.

"Tre fratelli" is obviously not acclaimed because of a climactic plot. It is Francesco Rosi's masterful portrayal of two conflicting perceptions of life that are so very clear to the viewer. By juxtaposing the relationships between the three brothers and that of Donato and Marta, Rosi's theme is magnified, reminding the viewer that we should all have an idea of the life we wish to lead. Let's note, however, that Donato does not live in a world of ignorant bliss; he is not naive. He merely had a clear perception of his true, human desires. The end of "Tre fratelli" is quite hopeful. It shows the viewer that no matter how much we isolate ourselves, we can always return. The brothers returned home as strangers, but it's obvious that in Puglia, their memories of the past were ignited, beseeching them to return to way that beatifies the fundamental joy in life, a joy that is not excluseive to southern Italy. We can live happily anywhere. As "Tre fratelli" so heart-wrenchingly reminds us, our lives can slip by quickly, yet without meaning. However, by looking inside of ourselves, we can always regain that which we have lost.

THREE BROTHERS narrows with ease the gulf between two creative approaches in Italian cinema: the drama of social observation and the poetry of lyric force. That any film-maker would be able to look at the problems of a modern industrial society with the sensitivity of a poet or a painter is a wonder in itself. That director Francesco Rosi succeeds so eloquently is doubly wondrous. But then this is the gifted creator of CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI and ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES. The three brothers have returned to their southern home village after the death of their mother. The film begins with the magnified sounds of heartbeats on the soundtrack against the bleak images of a huge building with dark, knocked-out windows. When the credits end we are shown a hideous cluster of rats in close-up. It is the disturbing nightmare we have shared with the middle of three brothers, a worker in a boys' reformatory in Naples. Frustrated by his battle to keep kids off drugs and away from crime, he is the self-giving liberal who is losing the fight. The younger brother is a Turin factory worker, embittered about his working conditions and victim of a failing marriage. The eldest son is a sedate magistrate in a Roman court who is handling a case involving terrorists and who constantly fears for his own life. He also looks upon his radicalized younger brother as a threat, one of the potential terrorists he is struggling against. The Puglia village to which the brothers return is an impoverished place from which they have long escaped and for which each professes a hopeless nostalgic attachment. Much of the movie delves into the varying anxieties of the brothers at a moment of intense introspection. Their aging patriarch father, on the other hand, is a man of great dignity, calm, and simple religious fervor, an emblem of what modern society has lost. He reflects a diminishing and changing past that can never be regained. It is a past that the old man's little granddaughter, with her childlike fascination for the little pleasures of country life, becomes fond of. There is bond between the two that is one of the most touching elements of this film. In a way she is a continuation of her own dead grandmother's attachment to the simple joys of life. The film says that while the sons have gained something in the amenities of urban civilization, they have lost something as well, something vital and profound. They have lost their home, their roots, their traditional values. They lie on children's cots now too small for them. They are overgrown children in cribs, and their uneasy reflections take on the bitterness of regret. They had departed from here for the best of reasons and once gone, as the youngest brother explains, they became immediately homesick. What is in THREE BROTHERS? Very little, if you count. There is a death, a brief return to a hometown, a few memories and flashbacks, some jarring evocations, a child playing, a burial, a beautiful final image. Indeed, nothing much happens. And yet it is as though everything happens. From its poetic tableau-like portrait of life, death, homesickness, there emerges a tapestry of modern society, perhaps even modern man in general, that is as violently graphic as it is lovingly gentle. It is a work of art.

"Three Brothers" (Italian, 1980): An extremely melancholy movie – more like the depression of a Swedish film or the ennui of a French film, than anything typically Italian. Three estranged brothers receive word their Mother has died. Daily lives are put on hold, and each heads to the "country" for the funeral, their Father, and to reacquaint with one another in the village of their childhood. The three are shown in forgiving contrast to their Father, one of the son's daughters, and the old family dog. Think of this movie as a trim, non-commercial, patient, personal, very thoughtful "Big Chill". The scoring was perfectly sad and delicate throughout…you will not want to get up and dance. However, unlike a Swedish film, "Three Brothers" does slowly reveal glimmers of acceptance and hope.

Beautifully shot family tale with an excellent cast of top-notch actors is obviously meant, with its multi-level narrative, as fable for life and society in Italy.