“Vermiglio,” which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival this year, takes us to a time and place that would undoubtedly be familiar to my Italian ancestors.
The setting is a remote Alpine village in the Italian Dolomites, near the Austrian border, circa 1944. WW II is drawing to a close but otherwise life proceeds fairly normally for the Graziedei family, around whom the film is built.
The paterfamilias, Cesare (Tommaso Ragno) and his wife Adele (Roberta Rovelli) have nine children, with a tenth on the way. In one bed, three sisters sleep side by side. In another, two brothers sleep in opposite directions. A baby stirs in a crib stationed next to the parents.
Every morning, hot milk is served fresh from the cow’s udder. Then Cesare repairs to the one-room schoolhouse where he teaches the children of the village, including his own.
This peaceful but hardscrabble existence is disrupted by the arrival of Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a young Sicilian who has deserted from Mussolini’s army. He insinuates himself into the family’s graces and gradually falls for Cesare’s daughter Lucia (Martina Scrinzi). They marry, she gets pregnant, the war ends and Pietro goes to Sicily to visit his mother. He promises to return but months go by and the family hears nothing.
The family drama is compelling but the cinematography by Mikhail Krichman makes “Vermiglio” the most beautiful film of the year. Waterfalls, snowscapes and towering mountain ranges so typical of Northern Italy take me back to one of my favorite parts of the country, worlds away from Rome, Milan and the Amalfi Coast. With evocative scenics like this, you don’t need much dialogue (and you don’t get it.) But the words you do hear are not only spoken in Italian but in Ladin (la-DEEN), an obscure dialect spoken only in the region.
Candidly, this portrait of a vanished way of life may not be every one’s cup of espresso—the pace is so languorous you may doze off for a moment (as I did.) But patience is a virtue, and as the story slowly unfolds your admiration for “Vermiglio” will too.
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Verrrrry slow. We saw it here in Rome. Dozed off at the beginning. Much better Otto Montagne.