Film: Le Quattro Volte
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 30th May 2011
Distributor: New Wave
Certificate: U
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Michelangelo Frammartino
Starring: Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano
Genre: Drama
Format: Cinema
Country of Production: Italy/Germany/Switzerland
Language: Italian
Review by: Natalie Meziani
Le Quattro Volte is almost certainly not what you will expect to see. It is a film that manages to bypass even the most defiant of art house cinema; it takes all the rules and folds them into a happily drifting paper aeroplane. Director Michelangelo Frammartino has set his second full-length feature in the south Italian region of Calabria, where he uses goats, a tree, some charcoal and an old man to explore Pythagoras’ theory of transmigration – the idea that existence of the soul is dispersed amongst human, animal, vegetable and mineral. There is an absence of dialogue and music and human interaction, therefore its entire meaning depends upon the amount of work the viewer is willing to put in themselves.
Le Quattro Volte begins with a very brief glimpse into the life of an old goat herder, afflicted with a chesty cough, which he attempts to combat daily by taking a shot of water mixed with dusty scrapings from the local church floor. Superstition it may be, but one missed “medication” ends up as a fatal mistake. His imminent death leads to the second chapter in Pythagoras’ idea of a four-fold soul, as we traverse towards the animal stage: meet the chaotic goats. While the film’s single human character is on the verge of making a plodding exit, the herd of goats are left without control and thus run riot across the town.
There are goats everywhere: they are in the deceased herder’s house and they are on his kitchen table. After his body is carried away in a coffin, the screen turns black and re-opens upon the unrefined birth of a goat. The birth of said goat provides us with our next protagonist, as we follow the kid in its early stages of life, until one day it becomes separated from the herd. The goat comes across a tree, which is cut down and used in the town’s festivities the following year. Having finished their celebration, the tree is sold to coalmen who burn the wood into charcoal, metaphorically releasing the herder’s soul back to where it began…
The cinematography’s resemblance to real life gives the film a documentary-like feel, with no overt enhancement of colour and a consistent use of natural lighting. There is a relentless sound of bells as the goats traverse around the town, but there is otherwise very little background noise. There is most certainly no music or speech. But although this may initially sound dreary and far too pretentious, Le Quattro Volte has a certain indistinct charm in its diversity.
With no dialogue, the story is facilitated through the use of expression and scene composition. While the film’s content is essentially ominous and slow-paced, there is also something comical about watching the oblivious existence of the goats. The brilliant thing about Le Quattro Volte is its ability to run for 88 minutes without the audience craving dialogue. The metaphorical richness and the peaceful scenarios allow it to progress painlessly, which also permits the viewer to interpret the film entirely as they wish due to a lack of verbal direction.
The shepherd is portrayed as a quirky and traditional fellow: more pans than one man should require are hung on his kitchen wall; his stark bedroom consists primarily of a shabby bed and some chairs; and he spends a lot of time contemplating. Giuseppe Fuda plays the role of this slow-paced old man, sporting a constant vacant stare and moving with the deliberation of a hopeless soul. His behaviour appears entirely natural, leading you to forget that he is in fact an actor.
Vast colourless buildings complete what appears to be a relatively motionless town, with frequent landscape shots of an area where nature is a ruling force of calmness. There are regular extreme long shots which focus on still constructions, and so any human or animal activity is highlighted. The stillness of the camera also means that close-up shots hold a subtle poignancy - there is an early scene transition which fixates purely on falling dust particles, which Frammartino manages to pull off due to its sheer hypnotic simplicity.
Le Quattro Volte calmly captures the viewer in a bated gasp, with each breath slowly held back by the unknown course of the next scene. There are no sudden actions or miraculous surprises, but this in turn allows the richness of life to shine through. It gives the viewer a chance to run wild with their own existential thoughts, and escapes the fabricated fantasy world of predictable cinema.
For those unwilling to dedicate their attention to something so abstract and unconventional, Le Quattro Volte should be avoided at all costs. It requires 88 minutes of uninterrupted attention, but, as Frammartino whispers hopeful words into your subconscious, he allows all the doubts of man to dissolve into a wisp of charcoal smoke, giving the soul an immortality which most other films can only dream of. NM
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