Tre fratelli
Italy
, 113 min
Shown in 1981
CREDITS
- dir
-
Francesco Rosi
- scr
-
Francesco Rosi, Tonino Guerra
- cam
-
Pasqualino de Santis
- cast
-
Philippe Noiret, Charles Vanel, Michele Placido, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Andrea Ferreol
-
COMMENTS
Francesco Rosi in person for tribute. English translation is Three Brothers.
To those who have followed the film career of Francesco Rosi, it became clear, years ago, that he is closely involved in both the political and aesthetic progressions of Italian life and culture. He has been a polemicist at times, a trenchant social critic and yet, in each of his works, there is a strongly humanistic love of life, a quest for happiness that is unattainable for the characters he describes. His early associations with Visconti, Emmer and Zampa throughly strengthened his personal vision as a film director, so that the finer strands of neorealism are interwoven with a poetic sentiment, defining Rosi’s style. In recent years, Rosi has turned toward re-examinations of the Italian pastorale: the conflict between modern urbanites, caught up in sociological upheaval and political strife, and the endurability of rural codes and responsibilities. It is this confrontation between the past and the present that permeates the story of three brothers who return to their village in southern Italy. Their father has called them to their mother’s funeral, and this journey is an opportunity for them to reassess each other’s lives. One is a distinguished Roman magistrate, troubled by the terrorism of the Red Brigade; another a teacher in a Neopolitan reform school; the youngest, an idealistic industrial-worker. They are immersed in a dry, unembellished atmosphere that summons forth the almost-forgotten affections and suppressed fears, and each brother articulates, for the first time, a rediscovery of feelings and mutual trust. The superb performances seem inspired by Rosi’s guidance, and there are those touches of universal poignance which place Tre Fratelli on the highest level of cinematic art. The images remain, tinged with the beauties of Nature and the pathos of solitary tears, evoked merely by a discarded wedding ring.
—Albert Johnson
FACTOID #176
Hordes of screaming teenagers were fascinated with the Rolling Stones, but so were influential imagemakers Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Frank. The SFIFF has screened three different films with the Rolling Stones as the main subject: Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil (SFIFF 1972), Frank’s Cocksucker Blues (SFIFF 1998) and the IMAX documentary At the Max (SFIFF 1991).
