Christ Stopped at Eboli

this movie did more than any other Italian film i've seen to interest me in italy itself--the people, the land, the culture. it also opened my mind to the intelligence of the uneducated among us--i loved that guilia was so real and right-n and so full of peasant superstition that in no way interfered with her ability to "get it." i have begun to travel in italy and having seen this film i am driven to see the south and visit the carlo levi house and museum. his paintings see into the object, to me, like a quality black and white study which i find the most expressive medium. as soon as i see the faces in the beginning of this film, i am drawn in. i found the melancholy music somewhat sentimental (like the music in truffaut's films) but a necessary comfort.

This long TV film was very influential (on my younger self) which has remained at the forefront of my memory since it was shown on the BBC over forty years ago.

Some people might find this a bit slow and there's not a lot of action. It is deliberately slow and long (3 hours) to give you a similar immerse experience to Carlo Levi himself has as he is thrusted into that strange alien world. As you'll know, it's a true story of a doctor from northern Italy exiled to a southern backwater, a place not just separated by miles from civilisation but by centuries. The film is about how this learned 20th century man copes with and leans to love the harsh medieval world he is forced to be part of. We share this journey with him, we feel we are there. It's a beautiful, thoughtful and fascinating film.

This is a story that had to be told. It might not have been had not Carlo Levi been exiled in 1935 for his anti-fascist activities to a town in the remote, impoverished Southern province of Lucania. His non-ideological, unsentimentalised, beautifully observed memoir of the year he spent there has been vividly realised by Francesco Rosi whose films are noted for their depiction of inequalities and injustices. The political activism of Gian Maria Volonté has been well-documented so this film could be seen as a distillation of the beliefs of both actor and director. The author himself had passed away four years earlier but this adaptation would surely have met with his approval.

Volonté's mellow, nuanced and understated portrayal of Levi, sadly overlooked in terms of awards, is indisputably one of his finest. It was the performance of Lea Massari in a comparatively small role as his wife that was recognised and very good she is too. Also appearing are the glorious Irene Papas and the always enigmatic Alain Cuny. Rosi of course was renowned for his skill with actors.

This is about a region that time has forgotten and for which its nation does not care. Looked down upon by the rich, industrialised North, economically depressed, lacking the basics of life and with no facilities, its residents have succumbed to superstition and mysticism. As for Religion "Christ stopped short of here" and its sole representative is a drunken, discredited priest. The pro-fascist mayor, played by Paolo Bonacelli, tries to get the inhabitants interested in the radio broadcasts of Mussolini but they are totally indifferent and simply do not care that Addis Abbaba has fallen! Ironically it was the young men of this region who supplied so much of the cannon fodder in the trenches of WW1 which was the subject of Rosi's earlier 'Uomini Contro'.

Originally made for television this slightly truncated version certainly belies its length and epitomises Rosi's aim to make his audience more than just 'passive spectators'. Piero Piccioni has composed a haunting score and the cinematography of Pasqualino de Santis is breathtaking. Unlike so many Italian films it is not marred by the booming voices of post-synchronisation and the dubbing of the gallery of characters is expertly done.

Carlo Levi wrote that "the whole of life is a tragedy without a stage" but here Rosi does not lay it on with a trowel and this magnificent film becomes, despite the hardships it depicts, an affirmation of life.

"Christ stopped at Eboli" (or in Italian "Cristo si e fermato a Eboli") is a rather hard to find movie. The theatrical release is about 2,5 hours long, but I saw the TV movie, that is nearly an hour longer.

The movie is about the banishment of narrator Carlo Levi in 1935 - 1936. Levi was a left wing intellectual and critic of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

The story is situated during the war between Italy and Abyssinia (todays Ethiopia), so before the Second World War.

In spite of the title, the movie is neither about Christ nor about Eboli.

Not about Eboli because the train station of Eboli is only a stopover in the journey of Levi to his banishment location of Grassano and Luciano, two small villages in the Southern region of Lucania (today Basilicata).

Not about Christ because in the remote villages of Grassano and Lucania the Roman Catholic faith is only a surface below which ancient pagan beliefs still lives on.

In his banishment location Levi enjoys a great deal of freedom. Mussolini is more concerned with getting rid of him in the political discourse than to punish him. At the beginning Levi is first of all an observing outsider but gradually he integrates with the local community, in no small measure thanks to his medical knowledge.

"Christ stopped at Eboli" is a film about the wealth difference between North- and South Italy. Levi encounters instances of malaria in his banishment location. Many citizens try to flee the poverty by emigrating to the United States. The "emotional distance" to New York seems almost shorter than to Rome.

But "Christ stopped at Eboli" is in particular a film about the mixture of Christianity and pagan beliefs. In many instances we see this combination in horror like movies (compare "The wicker man", 1973, Robin Hardy) but in "Christ stopped at Eboli" it is used to full effect in a social drama.

The film is above all a slow movie, in the good sense of the word. The central theme is the gradual integration of he main character in the local community, "gradual" being the essential word in this sentence.

Francesco Rosi is not a very well known director. He is of the same generation as the more popular Taviani brothers. "Christ stopped at Eboli" has also some resemblance with some Taviani movies, situated as it is in the poor South. I am thinking of "Padre Padrone" (1977) in particular. Compared with "Christ stopped at Eboli" "Padre Padrone" is however nearly an action movie.

I have seen this TV film several times after reading Carlo Levi's book and having been to the Basilicata area in which Levi was exiled.

I consider the film to represent the book's aims which is to show the oppressed state of the peasants in Basilicata, the remoteness and lack of care of central government in Rome and the way in which the fascists could control the local area with very limited support - but of the people who mattered, the mayor, doctor, police. The rest of the populace could be, and were ignored.

A brief nitpicking comment on the title. It comes from something the priest said - on the lines that Christ never reached Aliano but stopped at Eboli some 150 miles distant. Eboli plays no part in Levi's book and the start of the film is wrong in showing him changing trains there, and picking up the stray dog. To get to Matera, where he started his exile he changed in Bari and would not have gone anywhere near Eboli.