The only Taviani brothers' movie that I saw on its theatrical release was "La notte di San Lorenzo" (given the more poetic title of "Night of the Shooting Stars" in English), which was voted the best picture (in any language) by the National Society of Film Critics awards for 1983 American releases (they also gave their award for best directing to Paolo and Vittorio Taviani). Having recently seen their break-out international success Padre, Padrone, plus "Fiorile" and Tu Ridi, I was trying to remember "La notte di San Lorenzo." All I could remember was the shooting stars in the night sky shown in the present-day (that is, 1983) frame of the story.

There are some scenes that seem memorable (though only one that came back to me watching it again two decades later), particularly in the village church and in a wheat field and orchard next to it. I think that the vivid images faded from my memory because "La notte di San Lorenzo" lacks a protagonist. The woman telling the story to her children on a much later Saint Lorenzo's night was only six in 1944 when the Germans were retreating from her (Tuscan) village of San Marino, having mined many of the buildings. She could not possibly have observed or understood much of what is shown (a failure of perspective in novelistic terms) and what she felt or thought at the time is not made clear.

The focus is instead on the grown-ups. The villagers have been ordered by the Germans to assemble at one point (or shot on sight anywhere else). A bishop (in a village?) )Giorgio Naddi_ decides the assembly point should be the cathedral (in a village?), where he will celebrate mass. The mayor (obviously accepted by, if not appointed by the fascists) leads about half the village there. The other half decide to flee and try to find the advancing Americans. The latter are led by Galvano (Omero Antonutti, who played the title role in "Padre, Padrone" and has appeared in many other Taviani films), who does not trust that the Germans will confine themselves with blowing up the houses they have designated.

Finding the Americans and not being shot by them is far from being straightforward. Moreover, a band of black-shirted fascists are marauding through the countryside. I don't think it is giving too much away to say that all the choices are fraught with peril.

There are a lot of characters, none of whom is much developed. Thus, it was hard for me to identify casualties, except for a few instances (particularly a fascist youth whose swagger is knocked out from under him). The climactic battle is as confusing and set in as physically beautiful setting as the one in "The Thin Red Line." The one in "La notte di San Lorenzo" is not as graphically bloody as those in "The Thin Red Line" and "Saving Private Ryan," but is extremely chaotic, with more than a dash of very dark humor. The mopping up shocks many viewers (but "Tu Ridi" prepared me not to expect any mercy).

The movie goes on too long after the climactic battle, though the night contains what I remembered best. The ending is not tidy (I mean the end of the 1944 story; the 1983 children have gone to sleep and don't see the closing meteorite).

Rosselini's Paisą(n) was even more episodic than "La notte di San Lorenzo" (and somewhat even, though the taste of ashes in the mouth is more bitter in that near-documentary of the war ending with the American army moving northward through Italy). I'd say that "Paisą" is more than the sum of its many great parts, "La notte di San Lorenzo" less than the sum of its parts, impressive as some of those parts are. Also, there is not the least bit of nostalgia in "Paisą." What there is in "La notte di San Lorenzo" feels wrong (though I know it is possible to feel nostalgic for times of hardship and even terror... and Malčna manages to blend the horror and the nostalgia looking back at youth during and immediately after World War II in Sicily, though some viewers had difficulty with the shift from comedy to tragedy in it). And the child in "La notte di San Lorenzo" is less sympathetic than the one in the second half of "Tu Ridi" or the boy in "Padre Padrone" or the girl in "Fiorile."

For a movie showing a village schism and with a more sympathetic child on a very dangerous trek, "Himalaya" shows how to do it

The great music is lifted and adapted from Verdi's Requiem mass. The rest of the melancholy (/nostalgic) score was composed by Nicola Piovani. The (too-?) gorgeous photography of Tuscan countryside was shot by Franco Di Giacomo (not the Tavianis' usual cinematographer) and won him a Donatello Award.

The film expands upon the Taviani brothers' 1954 debut short "San Miniato, July 1944" (which would have been a logical bonus feature for the DVD, that has none other than a theatrical trailer). San Miniato is located between Florence and Pisa, BTW.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age