Sicilia! (1999)

Director: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub

Based on the novel by Elio Vittorini

Cast: Gianni Buscarino as the son Silvestro; Angela Nugara as the mother; Vittorio Vigneri as the knife-grinder; Carmelo Maddio as the orange-seller; Ignazio Trombello as policeman; Simone Nucatola as policeman; Giovanni Interlandi as the traveler

Canon Fodder

Accused oranges.

One man journeys home from New York City to Sicily, encountering various people and with many conversations taking place. Thus begins the first Straub-Huillet film that won me over, as one of the only films that were ever released of theirs in the United Kingdom in the 2010s¹. Sicilia is also one film that is fully of their aesthetic, without compromise, yet you could actually show to anyone with success possible of winning them over, because instead of dense philosophical ideas being upfront, their concerns are found in a text which is vivid in its depiction of life in a universal sense. Any film which begins with the text "for the marmoset and in memory of Barnabé the cat" stands out as even gracious and relaxed even if the film will not stray away from emotional confrontation, more so striking as the original source material was more dreamlike and seen as a parable against Fascism.

Adapted from Elio Vittorini's Conversations in Sicily, large portions of Sicilia the film are just admiring the Sicilian landscape and countryside in panning camera shots or on a moving train. It feels timeless. It does not seem paradoxical either a very political duo of filmmakers would make a film celebrating this world as, entirely around the lead Silvestro returning home, this is about the working class, the ordinary world of people who like those cast in the roles they have always had an empathy for. That it is Sicily is of note too as this is not Northern Italy - Sicily, in the South, is its own distinct culture compared to a metropolis like Rome, one which could easily be maligned in culture exported to the outside world when the image of Italy as a country usually points to the likes of Rome and Venice, not the uniquely distinct countryside of Sicily. Again, in light to this, it does not seem paradoxical either a very political duo of filmmakers would make a film celebrating this world as, entirely around the lead Silvestro as travels from New York City, almost as an amnesiac needing to remember his past.

Structurally, shot in black-and-white, Straub-Huillet continue their minimalism with still close-ups of the non-professional actors and quite, efficient editing. A lot of the pair's extensive minimalism can simply be put to the fact, even as admires of classic Hollywood cinema, someone like Straub also hated the artifice which undermined the power of the art form. This has, paradoxically, made the couple's much more difficult with some of their films then one would think, because we have adapted to cinema with quicker paces, "musical soup" for the scores when the work is not at its best, or even great production from the sets to the music being mishandled. But, until later scenes of drama, most of Sicilia is in name of universal parts of life that are more easier to digest than some of the content in their previous work, with philosophical and political content, material which due to the style, now perfectly attuned and crafted, actually resonates with connective tissue with ease as long as you are patient. Of oranges in salad with oil and bread, cooking hot pepperoni in summer and mackerel in winter, eating cicadas out of curiosity and being unable to sell or even unload all the oranges. Rejecting a bourgeois tale of glamour in favour of the rural working class and hardworking Sicilians, just these conversations you rarely see in dramas is itself political.

Notably for Sicilia, all the non professional actors are good. Everyone is distinct, such as the man on the train complimented for his baritone voice to the other before with strangely philosophical insights. This is notable as in one of their flaws depending on the film, Straub-Huillet could sometimes force their strict minimalism with a detriment where the actors performed without a complete lack of emotion with contrivance, a lack of the aimed ideal that Robert Bresson also exposed, probably (to be a heathen to the realm of art cinema attacking a sacred cow) because it will not also work just to film a non-actor reading aloud lines from a dense literary text. This has the perfect balance however, the directors opposed to the contrivances of other cinema and wishing for true verisimilitude, finding it when they strike the balance of casting non-actors and allowing them to bring gravitas to the work, greater connection as a result for this or Antigone (1992). Here, and there, you see what they had in mind and see how casting non-actors would be much more beneficial to cinema depending to the content at hand.

As a result, one of Sicilia's best aspects becomes Angela Nugara, as Silvestro's mother. The biggest sequence of Sicilia and providing its depth is when Silvestro finally reaches his mother to spend time with her. It begins softly - food and cooking conversation. It gets more complicated - talking about a grandfather who was a socialist who yet believed in St. Joseph and joined the festival procession for him, which Silvestro thinks is paradoxical but his mother fully believes made sense. Then it gets tense - exorcising conflicted views of his father, a womaniser whose flattery she considers worse than when her grandfather just slept around, he looking up to him as the idealised father. It gets emotionally visceral and vivid - her detailed explanation of giving birth to Silvestro. The sequence is exceptional, arguably one of the best in the directors' entire career, the weight of Sicilia in how, at sixty six minutes or so, there is completely no filler and every sequence means something even beyond this the best.

Such as the pleasant conclusion with the blade sharpener man who uses a contraption on his bicycle to sharpen his work. He in particular, wishing to sharpen swords and cannons, believing there is no knives and scissors in the town, shows how Sicilia is even pleasant and humorous in its own dry way. And that the point of the film, as he and Silvestro eventually conclude the film on a shared stream-of-consciousness going through things that delight them in life in general, or just the aspects that make of life give-or-take, arguably leads to a soothing moment in the directors' careers, even in mind that into the nineties they actually did make a comedy. Arguably leading too to something more symbolically profounder in how they celebrate in this final dialogue the real worth of life, rather than something contrived and forced upon us.

 

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1) We must thank New Wave Films, a distributor who is an underappreciated group, mainly because they did not release even Blu-Rays extensively until the late 2010s, let along extra heavy ones with major restorations. They did however release a two disc set with Sicilia, Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1967) and Une Visite au Louvre (2004). This alongside the interesting current world films they released, such as Long Day's Journey into Night (2018) even with a 3D Blu Ray version, or their trio of Jan Svankmajer films make them unsung heroes of avoiding the popularist choices and getting the rewarding gems out.