L'Arbre aux sabots

I approached The Tree of Wooden Clogs with skepticism. In 1978, it won the Golden Palm at the festival in Cannes, where the most snobbish people in the world, concentrated in one square kilometer, gather. That is a sufficient warning for an observer who knows something about the self-centeredness of the festival scene. My instincts did not disappoint me. Olmi could have been considered the inventor of the genre of fictional documentaries in the 70s, which is now so popular and widely used. He dedicated maximum energy to creating authenticity in capturing the lives of villagers in the Italian region of Lombardy. He worked with non-actors from the area in order to perfectly capture the local dialect. The film depicts the lives of five farming families living collectively on a farm and renting land from a landlord. However, comparisons to modern fictional documentaries are unfortunately not appropriate. They were created to make the documentary genre more attractive, lively, and accessible to viewers. They work with editing and professional actors, similar to entertaining fictional films. The downfall of Olmi's experiment lies in the fact that he works in real time, therefore it is very slow and, in my opinion, annoying and boring due to its murderous length. Olmi goes as far as the phenomenon of so-called slow TV today, which is completely beyond the scope of my interests. I know of three-hour films where the viewer doesn't have enough time to realize the long duration, and I know ones that subjectively last twice as long. Unfortunately, I would place The Tree of Wooden Clogs in the second category. Overall impression: 25%. (12/05/2017)

Olmi reconstruit l'Europe disparue dans un esprit délicat et paisible, qui était prise entre l'époque agricole et industrielle, tandis que les usines et le monde qui les accompagne se dessinent seulement vaguement et un peu sinistrement à l'horizon pour nos héros. L'Européen d'aujourd'hui ne peut qu'imaginer à quoi cela ressemblait lorsque d'innombrables fermes, moulins, champs et jardins, églises, routes et sentiers étaient dispersés dans tout le paysage et que chaque jour, on travaillait et vivait avec un rythme inchangé de génération en génération. Cependant, l'idéalisation n'est pas appropriée (et il est honorable que le réalisateur ne la pousse pas dans le film) - les gens souffraient de l'injustice de l'ordre social, étaient prisonniers de croyances superstitieuses, ne rejetaient certainement pas les avantages et l'argent, et le travail était surtout un devoir. Mais que faire lorsque tout cela était fait dans leur vie avec une telle simplicité et honnêteté que personne n'a plus aujourd'hui ! (12/04/2013)

I didn't think I would like this movie, but the way the rural life is captured here is something that only a few have managed to achieve. It's touching, it's powerful, it's slow, but at the same time, there is always something happening, which is mainly due to the excellent editing - don't expect a static camera here. I don't admire Italian cinema of this period as a whole, but this film, yes. (06/11/2015)