KAOS Movie Review
Chaos
The Taviani brothers—Paolo and Vittorio—created this vast mosaic consisting of four stories framed by a prologue and epilogue. The picture isn't well known here, probably because its length was daunting, and because movies comprised of short stories are rarely big at the boxoffice. The stories that the Tavianis tell here are all based on Pirandello tales, and are all set in Sicily. I've read review after respectful review of Kaos, most of which feel obliged to point out that the short stories are “uneven” in quality, and that some are better yarns than others. So what? Kaos is a transporting, magical recreation of folk legends as seen through the eyes of master storytellers, and if you should find one or two of these enchanting tales to be not quite as celestial, funny, or scary as the others, it still leaves you with an evening of entertainment difficult to match elsewhere. Many of us regret one aspect of adulthood above all others; the loss of that electric sensation of hearing a disturbing fairy tale for the first time, and not knowing how to react, other than with a mixture of fascination and fear. This is what the Tavianis have often brought to the movies, and in this film, in particular, their stories are best experienced just before being tucked in. (It's true that even the Tavianis thought that one of the stories should be removed from the American release version of Kaos, but the distributor didn't agree and left in all four. For my money, I wish there was a fifth.) This great looking movie was photographed by Giuseppe Lanci and features a sweeping, magical score by Nicola Piovani.
NEXT STOP … Padre Padrone, The Night of the Shooting Stars, Fiorile
1985 (R) 188m/C IT Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli, Massimo Bonetti, Omero Antonutti, Enrica Maria Modugno, Ciccio Ingrassia, Franco Franchi, Biagio Barone, Salvatore Rossi, Franco Scaldati, Pasquale Spadola, Regina Bianchi; D: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani; W: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani; C: Giuseppe Lanci; M: Nicola Piovani. VHS MGM, BTV