A documentary about the slow food movement. —IMDb
Though not among Italy’s most internationally renowned filmmakers, Ermanno Olmi ranks as one of his country’s finest. He is known for making realistic films about the lives of average people that are infused with an almost austere subtlety and rare ambiguity that is sympathetic yet not overly sentimental. A native of Bergamo, Italy, he was the son of peasant factory workers. Following his father’s death during WWII, Olmi and his mother supported the family working in the Edison-Volta electric plant where Olmi worked as a clerk. While there, he became involved in company-sponsored filmmaking and theatrical projects. Most of the films he made for the company had industrial themes. Eventually, he came to head the company film department and over the next seven years made many documentaries, notably his last Edison-Volta film, Il Tempo Si E Fermato (Time Stood Still), in 1959. It was with this film, a chronicle of the relationship that gradually developed between an elderly nightwatchman… read more
"living with less could be the new renaissance; the skin-and-bone child from africa and the obese american child are the product of the same exploitative food system - and this is avoidable". it's interesting how olmi revisits the theme of his "tree of wooden clogs", this time pondering not on the class relations, but on the economical sustainability of such a type of living, which, in the context of globl scandals concerning food biotechnologies and the inequal distribution of food, could be the only viable solution for a crisis both environmental and social. maybe it is not a coincidence that the closing song is called un albero di trenta piani, though this is hardly an argument for the above :).
This film was extremely disappointing. It wasn’t a ‘documentary’ so much as a random mishmash of footage- mostly from self-important conference attendees, some from unrelated sources such as the Svalbad… read review
