BANDITS OF ORGOSOLO Movie Review

Banditi a Orgosolo

A Sardinian shepherd named Michele, falsely accused of both murder and sheep rustling (perhaps the greater crime in his community), is forced to “take it on the lam” (sorry) with his brother when the villagers come after him. Most of his flock does not survive the journey, and Michele is forced into crime in order to survive. Performed primarily by a non-professional cast and photographed with the purity and unobtrusiveness of a great documentary, Bandits of Orgosolo feels like equal parts Man of Aran and The Bicycle Thief, with a bit of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. The overall effect is of life observed, and the director-writer-cinematographer Vittorio de Seta (not to be confused with The Bicycle Thief's Vittorio de Sica), has built on the principles of post-World War II neo-realism, but has taken that style to an even more uncluttered, unsentimental level. Bandits of Orgosolo had a wider influence than its relative obscurity would suggest, and it likely had an impact on another Italian director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose similarly stripped-down 1964 The Gospel According to St. Matthew would itself forever revolutionize the historical and religious cinema.

NEXT STOP … The Miracle (1948), Accatone!, Louisiana Story

1961 98m/B IT Michele Cossu, Peppeddu Cuccu; D: Vittorio de Seta; W: Vittorio de Seta, Vera Gherarducci; C: Vittorio de Seta, Luciano Tovoli; M: Valentino Bucchi. VHS NOS, FCT, VYY