Workers, Peasants  /  Sicilia!

Something as simple as a herring roasting on a hearth, or a meal of bread, wine and winter melon, takes on the humble aura of a Caravaggio painting in this masterful film.  That is to say, Straub-Huillet extol ordinary Sicilians who are poor of means but rich in spirit.  Filmed in Syracuse and Messina, Sicilia! is a tragicomedy involving an orange peddler, an Italian recently returned from America, two “stinky” police officers, a guilt-stricken landowner, a traveling knife sharpener and, perhaps most unforgettably, an indomitable peasant mother who reminisces about meals of snails and wild chicory, her husband’s philandering and cowardice, and her own father’s belief in an honest day’s labor, socialism, and St. Joseph.

35mm, color, in Italian with English subtitles, 66 min.  Written and directed by Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet.  Based on Conversations in Sicily by Elio Vittorini.  Cast: Gianni Buscarino, Vittorio Vigneri, Angela Nugara, Giovanni Interlandi.