Tree Of Wooden Clogs

Olmi's masterpiece is one of the most beautiful films ever made - rich in humanity pathos and supported by a most sensitive use of evocative music

I watched most of this on fast-forward... and I was still bored. Long, slow - painfully so - and nothing really happens. The bit about the clogs comes so late into the film I was beginning to wonder why on earth it was called 'The Tree of Wooden Clogs'! I also didn't like the nasty surprise of witnessing a live animal being slaughtered - FOR REAL... although a film about rural peasant life should have given me a clue.. I didn't think it would be *that* realistic! Next time I'll stick to 'Fiddler on the Roof' - a great plot, lots of pace and some fab music to boot... everything Wooden Clogs didn't have.

Long, ... very, very long! But allow yourself the time. Take a few evenings if you must, its worth it.

This is a superb portrayal of human life at a time and in a place some way from here and now. You really get to feel for these people through the way the reserved way they respond to the tough life challenges they face.

There's little in the way of narrative, more a kind of documentary catching events as the seasons roll. And oh-so-beautifully to watch.

A brilliant observation of the life in a Lombard cascina in 1898. It shows the contrast between the harsh life of the country and the discipline in existance between the landowner's arbitrary powers and his pious sharecropping tenants. Significantly it's on May 5 1898 that the young just married couple travel from their family home village to the wife's aunt in Milan who is the Mother Superior in a religious home for abandoned bairns. There is an ulterior motive for their spending their first wedding night as guests of the nuns though...

They travel by barge to the metropolis and witness by chance the royal troops in action. The workers had organized a strike to demonstrate against the government of Antonio Starrabba di Rudinì, responsible for the general increase of prices, and for the famine that was affecting the country. The events ended terribly with cannon being used in the Piazza del Dom and many scores killed.

The troops marching against the crowd forms a suitable contrast to the ejection of the whole family from their court in the cascina for the mere unauthorized felling of a most insignificant tree to provide the wood for a pair of clogs for Battisti's young child to walk the 6 Km to school. Thank goodness for the protection of European Laws!

Perhaps it would have been better for the DVD to have had the spoken word in the Lombard language which is available in the original film instead of the heavily inflected italian.

I will not spoil anything of this for you - just see it

film making as it should be

thank you Olmi