Padre Padrone [DVD]

There's no shortage of grit and unpleasantness in Padre Padrone, the kind of film you really couldn't make today - violent child beatings, animals beaten, killed or worse on screen (I really wasn't expecting the montage of donkey and chicken molesting) and a distinct lack of any sentimentality. But the Taviani Brothers' film is still one of the best I've seen this year, turning what could easily have been an exercise in miserablism into a remarkable and occasionally anarchic but always imaginative piece of pure filmmaking. From its great opening, where the real Gavino hands the actor playing his father the stick he will use to beat him as a child, there's an intelligent audacity that manifests itself in a world where animals and even music have voices if you know how to listen: the battle of wills between Gavino and a goat played out in voice over, or the voice overs of the school children whose laughter at Gavino's fate turns to horror as they realize they are next are just two great examples. Some shots manage to be strangely beautiful in spite of their context or even, odd as it sounds, their visual quality - the tracking shot of leaving the village, the long take of the father hurrying home to kill his son. The film also has a superlative use of sound, creating a sense of place out of the sounds as much of the sights in Gavino's first night in the pasture.The two hours fly by, but burn themelves into your memory. It's just a shame that Fox Lorber's DVD is such poor quality.

I read the other reviews and found more out of this film than I did. One of the most disturbing aspects of this movie was the mother, and her evil laugh. That's not the way a mother acts. Its a wonder Gavino turned out half way decent at all. I would love to know if he ever got , had kids of his own, had any normalcy in his relationships. And I would love to know if his dad hit him in the head at the end of the movie. The camera stops, so we don't know.

A piece of life to discover

This is how many people on the islands in Southern Europe were raised. It as the standard of the time. It was heart wrenching but an important film to watch especially for people who work or know children who are being abused. I understand that historical trauma is at the root of this type of behavior in any society. Wars such as Iraq and Afganistan are good example, the Rawandan genicide, North Korean death camps, Mexico drug cartels and corrupt police, the brutality how the US treats our southern nieghbors who wish to have a better life by crossing the borders and becoming undocumented immigrants instead of human beings are all good examples of how this try of brutality is passed on through the process of epigenetics.

I ordered this movie, along with many other Winners at Cannes. When I ordered the DVD, the description said that it was a Region 0 DVD, i.e., plays everywhere. Not true! It won't play on my DVD player. Now the same DVD is described as Region 2. Because I bought so many DVDs at once, I failed to try to watch the DVD within Amazon's 1 month return window (new to me, so Amazon won't accept the return. Lesson painfully learned: I won't buy more than 1 DVD at a time from Amazon so I make sure that I watch it and it works before the return period expires. I was able to watch the DVD on my computer. Definitely not worth watching on a small screen, sitting at a desk. True story about a peasant Italian boy determined to get an education despite his father's interference.

I love this true story movie but it is crazy and has some very disturbing scenes not for children at all. However, it was important to show as it was a true account.

Very intense. Difficult and extraordinary life of sheperd's son in Sardinia. Enduring the loneliness, brutality of the land and an abusive father.

Excellent!

Based on the real-life autobiography of Sardinian boy shepherd turned author, Gavino Ledda, writer-directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s 1977 film is an inventively told account of the archaic, rural way of life Ledda endured under the controlling regime of his tyrannical father. The Tavianis tale here is rooted in the patriarchal ('father master’) regime that had no doubt endured for centuries within families like the Leddas, where the gaining of an education, outside of coming to terms with the natural world, is frowned upon. Instead, myth, superstition and traditional customs dominate and the film-makers depict Gavino’s dilemma with much cinematic flair and eccentricity, in the main defying conventional narrative, whilst giving us moments of idiosyncratic humour amongst the predominantly dour treatment meted out to Gavino and his human and animal counterparts. The natural world here becomes a living, breathing component of Gavino’s world, the rugged Sardinian landscapes captured in all their challenging glory by Mario Masini’s cinematography and backed up by an extraordinary sound design. Egisto Macchi’s score adds to the overall impact whilst the choice of two classical pieces – Strauss’ Overture from Die Fledermaus and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto – are also memorably featured.Emphasising the authenticity of their tale, The Tavianis top and tail their film by featuring the real-life Gavino handing Omero Antonutti’s father, Efisio, the birch that Efisio uses to admonish his son, in a superb schoolroom scene in which Efisio, withdrawing his son from classes in order to tend the sheep, points out that the other schoolboys will soon be next (Masini’s camera thereafter focusing on each boy’s visage, as their voiceovers speak their defiance). The early sequences of the film, featuring Fabrizio Forte as the 6-year old Gavino, are some of the most eccentric and, often, uncompromising, the suggestion perhaps being that the father’s cruel treatment of his son spurs Gavino (and his schoolboy friends) into acts of cruelty to (and sexual depravity with) the animals under their charge – the goat milking sequence, in which, both Gavino and the nanny, relay their thoughts to amusing effect, is an outstanding example. Jumping forward to Gavino as a young man (now played, superbly, by Saverio Marconi) there is a noticeable change in the Tavianis narrative approach, perhaps linked to Gavino 'discovering culture’ beyond his rudimentary, bare-bones existence, if (initially) only in the form of an accordion playing Strauss’ intoxicating overture. Thereafter, Gavino and his father find themselves again at the mercy of nature as their 'inherited’ olive grove is ruined by severe weather, as a prelude to another outstanding sequence in which Gavino and his fellow bemoaners, on the cusp on manhood, all vow to emigrate (literally) under the weight of Efisio taking the form of a religious icon. Even though Gavino’s first attempt to leave is thwarted by his illiteracy, he eventually finds his way into the army and is able to finally cast off the shackles of his repressive upbringing – this latter sequence also features Nanni Moretti as Gavino’s buddy Cesare (the pair still, at this point, ridiculed for being unable to speak 'accepted Italian’).With Padre Padrone, the Tavianis created a powerfully authentic, yet cinematically inventive, piece of work, mixing elements of documentary, social realism and surrealism and morphing the narrative style to give a perhaps surprisingly satisfying and coherent whole. As comparators, there are hints of the uncompromising social realism of films like Visconti’s La Terra Trema and Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs, whilst as a stark coming of age film perhaps something like The Bill Douglas Trilogy or, even, Bresson’s Mouchette. In the end, though, Padre Padrone is a film that needs to be seen on its own terms.

This film was inspired by an Italian novel which relates the physical and psychological misery of a family and mainly of the young hero subjected to the violent domination ot the father and forced to give up school to become a shepherd in a very lonely and savage countryside ,with no human contact .The hero will rise and revolt under the oppression . A very strong , sometimes shocking film which denounces the evils caused by extreme poverty and analphabetism , directed by the talented Taviani brothers ,it won the Palme d 'or at the cannes Festival of 1977 and other prizes

What an absolutely brilliant film. Great price and great service. Well satisfied.

Genius

Sad, true story, things have changed since then but a very emotional watch!