THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS Movie Review

The Night of San Lorenzo
La Notte di San Lorenzo

In a small Tuscan village during the closing days of World War II, the Nazi occupiers and their fascist collaborators react to the knowledge that the Allied forces are only days away. This remarkable film by Italy's Paolo and Vittorio Taviani is quite unlike any other historical film ever made; it's told through the eyes of a woman who was just six at the time, and now, as an adult, is telling the story of what happened in the little village of San Lorenzo to her own young daughter. What we see is filtered not only through years of memory, but is also told to us as a bedtime story. The Tavianis have found a cinematic equivalent for the fairy tale embellishment that the mother soothes her child with, and the stylized images and rich soundtrack are as intoxicating and fresh to adults as the story she's telling must be to the child. It's a staggeringly imaginative work, and the kind of picture that makes you remember all over again that the possibilities of the cinema are all still before us. The ingeniously stylized cinematography is by Franco Di Giacomo, and the lyrical score is by Ennio Morricone. Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival; Best Picture and Best Director, National Society of Film Critics.

NEXT STOP … Padre Pardone, Kaos, Grand Illusion

1982 (R) 106m/C IT Omero Antonutti, Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli, Massimo Bonetti, Norma Martel#lb, D: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani; W: Tonino Guerra, Giuliani G. De Negri, Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani; C: Franco Di Giacomo; M: Nicola Piovani. Cannes Film Festival ‘82: Grand Jury Prize; National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘83: Best Director (Taviani), Best Director (Taviani), Best Film. VHS MGM, AUD