Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Padre Padrone
April 3rd 2009 01:00
Perhaps after Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Bernado Bertolucci, two of the most admired Italian filmmakers of modern times are the brothers Paolo and Vittorio Traviani. The duo is known for their politically charged reworkings of historical events and social commentary on life in the lower classes of Italy. While "The Night of the Shooting Stars" (1982) is often regarded as their best work (recently reviewed here), a ready competitor for that title is "Padre Padrone" (1977), a stark look at the life of young, barely literate shepherd boy who lives under the thumb of his tyrannical peasant father. It was a film that astounded critics at the time and subsequently garnered the Travianis worldwide attention.
Shot almost entirely in the Sardinian dialect, Padre Padrone begins with a 6-year-old Gavino (Fabrizio Forte) being yanked out of school by his shepherd father (Omero Antonutti) and taken to tend the family flock in the desolate Sardinian mountainside. Gavino’s father is a brutish stickler who readily beats his son at even the mildest sign of weakness or defiance, inducting the boy into this new way of life with a diet of strident lessons and tough punishments. Driven by what he sees as economic necessity, the father’s behaviour borders on sadism, even if there are isolated moments of tenderness, such as sharing his perceptions of nature and the panic he feels when he realises, after Gavino faints from fright and exhaustion during one particularly heartless beating, that the torture has gone far enough. Still, it’s seemingly heartless and irrational behaviour, made all the more bewildering when seen through the prism of a young child’s understanding.
The following years are a catalogue of hardship and loneliness, but Gavino’s bleak existence is tempered when as a teen he begins to play the accordian, arousing a spark of creativity that encourages him to seek his independence. Gavino’s father tries to suppress his son’s growing autonomy, but as Gavino grows into a young man he seeks his liberation and the education he was denied as a child.
In "Padre Padrone", the Travianis have created a very straightforward film that benefits immensely from the vivid manner in which it has been rendered. Originally made for Italian television on a relatively frugal budget, everything has a distinctly sparse feel that adds to the slightly surrealist tone of the picture, from the natural lighting, often static framing right through to the austere interior of the shepherd family’s village home. Likewise, the scenes filmed in the desolate Sardinian mountainside possess a simplicity that allows you to easily take in the nuances of the players and the Travianis’ symbolism. Indeed, the alienness of the lunar-like landscape makes Gavino seem all the more isolated and helpless in the face of his father’s cruel behaviour and lends the early scenes a particularly horrifying brutality.
This savagery works, however, by making Gavino’s education and liberation later in the film all the more intoxicating. As Gavino (played with dazzling intensity as an adult by Saverio Marconi) joins the army and slowly builds his at first halting Italian he becomes fascinated by the structure of language and the precise meaning of words – indeed, the title of the film, which translates to ‘My Father, My Master,’ refers to Gavino reciting and exulting in the nuances of his new vocabulary. His eventual challenging of his father is handled with the softest of hands, as Gavino firmly but carefully and with obvious love defies his peasant past and chooses to follow his tertiary calling.
"Padre Padrone" is brilliant filmmaking and is a celluloid embodiment of the idea to keep movies simple, but not simplistic. Gavino’s struggles make for engaging viewing, but it also provides a willing canvas for some potent themes and stark symbolism. The film cleverly eschews stereotype also; Antonutti’s take on Gavino’s father might be a tyrant, but he’s also intricately human – we understand why he does what he does, even if we don’t agree with his methods. Ultimately, this is moving and affirmative artistry and, once watched, demands to be seen again and again.
*this image is from sky.com
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by David O'Connell
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Comment by Matt Shea
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Dave - yeah, check this out if you get a chance. It's a pretty fascinating film - it's just all of a piece; everything fits together nicely, from the story to the themes and symbolism to the actual low-budget film-making, which just adds to the frugal nature of the shepherd family's life. Any small imperfections the film has it almost wears as a badge of honour.
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