LE QUATTRO VOLTE

You could mistake LE QUATTRO VOLTE for a documentary, but it isn't. All the tiny, seemingly inconsequential events and details that make up this mesmerizing film from fledgling director Michaelangelo Frammartino have been staged. This is fiction; the people on screen are playing a part, in places and settings that are 'real', just like in the kind of 'documentaries' that Flaherty might once have made. There is no plot to speak of. We simply observe the passing of time in a small Italian hill-town, firstly through the eyes of an old goatherd and then, you might say, through the eyes of his goats and finally through the eyes of ... well, no-one at all. There is also no dialogue; what scraps of dialogue there appears to be in the background doesn't warrant sub-titles. Everything is given to us in purely visual terms and the cinematography of Andrea Locatelli is magnificent. Some people will, of course, find it boring. Today's cinema is mostly about action and movement whereas this is about inaction and stillness but give yourself over to it and you will see a masterpiece.