A film about time, myth and resistance based on two works by Italian writer Cesare Pavese, divided into two parts: the first adapts six conversations from
Dialogues with Leucò, a book published in 1947, composed of twenty-seven dialogues between mythical figures about mortality and the destiny of men and women following a time of oppression. The dialogues are shot in the Piedmontese landscape, set in an ancient time, and concern the relationship between God and men, the nature of sacrifice and the abuse of power.
The second part of the film takes place in the present and is based on another book by Pavese,
The Moon and the Bonfires, published in 1950. The book tells the story of an emigrant who returns to his native village after the end of the War in search of the traces of the peasant life and landscape he once knew, only to be confronted by loss, violence, and by the stories of resistance told by the partisans and of massacres committed by the Nazis.
Dolando is a short film made as an offer by the filmmakers to their crew. Dolando Bernardini, one of the actors in the film, who also starred in
From the Cloud to the Resistance, sings a capella three verses from Torquato Tasso’s
Jerusalem Delivered (1581).
With an introduction by filmmaker Redmond Entwistle.
Dalla nube alla resistenza,
From the Cloud to the Resistance, Dirs: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, Italy, 1979, 35mm/DCP, colour, 105 mins., Italian with English subtitles.
Dolando, Dirs: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, Italy/France/Germany, 2003, 35mm/DCP, colour, 7 mins., Italian with English subtitles.
Back
