Le quattro volte
Directed byMichelangelo Frammartino
Written byMichelangelo Frammartino
Produced byPhilippe Bober
Marta Donzelli
Elda Guidinetti
Gabriella Manfré
Susanne Marian
Gregorio Paonessa
Andres Pfäffli
StarringGiuseppe Fuda
Bruno Timpano
Nazareno Timpano
Artemio Vellone
CinematographyAndrea Locatelli
Edited byBenni Atria
Maurizio Grillo
Music byPaolo Benvenuti
Production
companies
Invisibile Film
Ventura Film
Vivo Film
Coproduction Office
Caravan Pass
Altamarea Film
Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali
Eurimages Council of Europe
Calabria Film Commission
Torino Film Lab
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
Regione Calabria
ZDF Enterprises
ARTE
RSI-Radiotelevisione Svizzera
Distributed byCinecittà Luce
Release dates
  • 16 May 2010 (2010-05-16) (Cannes)
  • 28 May 2010 (2010-05-28) (Italy)
Running time
88 minutes
CountriesItaly
Germany
Switzerland
LanguageItalian
Box office$255,391[1]

Le quattro volte (English: "The Four Times") is an Italian film made in 2010. It depicts the concept of metempsychosis taking place in the remote mountain town of Caulonia, in southern Italy.[2][3]

Plot

The film comprises four phases, or 'turns', following Pythagoras.[4] The turning of the phases occurs in Calabria where Pythagoras had his sect in Crotone. Pythagoras claimed he had lived four lives and this with his notion of metempsychosis is the structure of the film showing one phase and then turning into another phase. A famous anecdote is that Pythagoras heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog.[5]

  • The first turn is the human realm and is about an old goatherd who is quite sick and who takes medicine made from the dust from the church floor in water at night. This phase includes a long 8-minute take of the procession of the villagers culminating in the dog and truck episode so the goats occupy the village.
  • The second turn is the animal realm and is a study of a young goat, from its birth onwards.
  • The third turn is the plant realm and is a study of a fir tree. Eventually the tree is chopped down to be displayed in the town square and an evocation of cultural memory.
  • The fourth turn shows the mineral realm as the tree is made into charcoal for the townspeople's fires. This phase, as charcoal is not a mineral in any modern definitions, points to a remembering of bio-cultural processes.

The fire and smoke point to carbon at the heart of the homes in the village delivered by the truck evoking human reason as the final understanding of the interaction of these turns and the true place of the human in the scheme of things. The smoke becomes dust, falling out from the chimneys at the end of the movie and down into the houses, street and back into the church. This is where the goatherd is seen trading milk for blessed dust for his nightly drinks, right at the beginning of the movie.

Production

There is virtually no dialogue in the film. The film was written and directed by Michelangelo Frammartino[6] and stars Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano and Artemio Vellone.[7]

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system. The site's the consensus states "Birth, death, and transformation are examined in Le quattro volte, a profound and often funny meditation on the cycles of life on earth."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[9]

Jonathan Romney, writing in The Independent on Sunday, described Le quattro volte as "both magnificent and magnificently economical," remarking "I like to think that it's possible for cinema to make profound cosmological statements without having to go all Cecil B. DeMille." Romney finds the film "the freshest and the deepest film I've encountered in a while," and "one of those rare films that anyone could enjoy, whether or not they normally care for slow Italian art cinema."[3]

Accolades

Awards GroupCategoryRecipientResult
AFM International Independent Film Festival[10]!f Inspired AwardWon

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Le Quattro Volte (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  2. ↑ British Film Institute. Le Quattro Volte + Q&A. Director Michelangelo Frammartino talks about Le Quattro Volte BFI Live BFI video
  3. 1 2 Le Quattro Volte, Michelangelo Frammartino, 88 mins, U. Jonathan Romney. The Independent on Sunday. 29 May 2011. Review in The Independent on Sunday
  4. ↑ Phillips, Michael (June 16, 2011). "Pastoral depiction of Pythagoras' theory". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 20 February 2013. The 6th century philosopher Pythagoras believed that the soul undergoes four discrete lives as it phases from human to animal to vegetable to mineral states.
  5. ↑ Diogenes Laërtius, viii. 36
  6. ↑ Michelangelo Frammartino on IMDb
  7. ↑ Andreas Wiseman. "Michelangelo Frammartino talks to Andreas Wiseman about his latest film, Le Quattro Volte" Interview in Screen Daily, 11 November 2010
  8. ↑ "The Four Time (Le Quattro Volte)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
  9. ↑ "The Four Time (Le Quattro Volte) Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  10. ↑ "!f International Independent Film Festival". !f Istanbul. Retrieved 2014-04-21.
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