Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Teyss "Padre Padrone" ("Father Master" in Italian) is inspired from Gavino Ledda's autobiography. The book provides invaluable insight on living conditions and bigger-than-life anecdotes. Remarkably, the movie transforms this authentic account into a metaphor on traditions, indigence, knowledge, emancipation and growing up.The movie only adapts selected passages of the book as usual (notably because of length), but interestingly adds a few scenes: men arguing and promising to leave Sardinia during the religious procession, Gavino peeing from the truck taking them away, Gavino and Cesare speaking Latin in the tank, etc. Logically, these scenes have a strong visual and symbolic impact. Also, the father's role is more developed in the movie and we perceive how he thinks: he is a victim of the system like Gavino, even though they fight back differently. *** WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS ***The metaphorical dimension is first expressed by the presence of Ledda himself at the beginning and at the end: the movie is hence put into perspective; we understand it carries a message. The actual life of Ledda is almost an allegory in itself: mostly alone when he was a child with limited communication possibilities, illiterate, he ultimately becomes… a famous linguist.The movie illustrates this journey with different symbols. First with silence: a bell rings when he is alone in the mountains, but also in military class. He hence remains lonely despite being surrounded by people, because he does not understand. Silence is also depicted by the fact Gavino cuts his lips twice: once to pretend he was attacked, once precisely to remain mute.Progressively, Gavino breaks free from his muteness and communicates. This initially comes through non-verbal means: music. He initially tries to play Strauss' waltz on his accordion… and another shepherd in the mountain answers with a flute. He then catches it on his radio, and thus passes the army test. Later on, he whistles Mozart's clarinet concerto after his father destroys the radio.He eventually learns Italian and articulated communication. He finally is able to answer back to his father. Interestingly, the speech he voices to him from his bed is memorised: this reminds of the father's speech at the beginning in school, which is memorised as well. The meaning seems to be: one can progress and learn, but can never completely relinquish one's heritage. Other illustrations of this topic: the movie starts and ends at school, when Gavino is young; Gavino does not understand the class at the army, as his father did not understand the olive purchaser's speech; Gavino recites word from the dictionary, as his father recited multiplications; when Gavino comes back to the village, he is afraid his father will strike him, just like he was before in the mountains; his father forbids him to eat and locks the food closet, just like he did in the mountains; Ledda says at then end: "I might abuse my new privilege, as my father did".Indeed, everywhere traditions are enduring and difficult to escape from. In the kitchen, the father wants to strike the adult Gavino with a stick… just like the shepherd stroke Sebastiano in the mountains. After the father violently hit the young Gavino, he sings a Sardinian tune… which will be repeated during the religious procession when Gavino is adult. Additionally, at this fabulous procession, the young men carry a heavy statue that we visualise as the father: they are dominated by traditions in different forms (religion, father, master).The resulting general psychological tension is visually expressed by instability: even when shots are fixed, the camera (apparently hand-held) always moves slightly. Traditions are a succession of prohibitions: don't leave the sheepfold, don't talk to other shepherds, don't eat unless you work, don't speak Sardinian in the army. Growing up, more than transgressing these, is being able to bypass them: respectively becoming an adult, learning music, studying, learning Italian.The movie has a universal dimension. Nobody bears a name, apart from Gavino, Cesare (the true friend) and Sebastiano (the mountain legend): the father, the mother, Gavino's sisters and brothers, other children and adults. This lack of identity is highlighted by the young men during the religious procession: "We have no name, we are just the padrone's this and that". It is not just Ledda's story: we see other children and adults with the same issues and desires. The shots on the children's faces at the beginning and at the end (with their inner thoughts at the beginning) are striking. These thoughts are horrible, like the ones Gavino's family has near Sebastiano's deathbed, yet we understand them: it is how necessity forces people to think. Some scenes are spectacular, for instance when the father fights with Gavino in the kitchen. It plays on different levels. Abstract: close shot on hands washing, on a hand hitting the red table to have food. Symbolic: father and son fight in obscurity, expressing their subconscious desire to get rid of each other; it is the dark conflict between tradition and emancipation. Ironic: they fight as Mozart's beautiful music plays; afterwards, the mother sings. Ambiguous: when Gavino fetches his suitcase afterwards, he first ignores his father, then puts his forehead on his leg. He still loves him despite everything. And his father first wants to caress his head, then strike it. We unexpectedly move on to the next scene, so will never know what actually happened, but it does not matter: the father's emotion stays suspended between love and hate. The following shot is magnificently nostalgic: we silently drive away from the village, looking backwards. This subjective view echoes the scene when Gavino previously left at the back of the truck: we now leave with him, apparently forever. In summary, "Padre Pardone" is gripping, with social, psychological and symbolic reach. Be warned, it is violent: harsh living conditions, harassment, child abuse, bestiality. However, it progressively delivers an optimistic message: through education and hard work, one can escape one's condition.

Turfseer 'Padre Padrone' is based on noted linguist Gavino Ledda's autobiography which came out in 1975. The distinguished directors, the Taviani brothers, brought the story to the screen two years later. Ledda chronicles his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, growing up under the yoke of his tyrannical father, a sheep herder from Sardinia.'Padre Pardone' opens with a cameo from the real-life Gavino introducing the story directly to the audience. He brings us back to the time when he was in elementary school, when his father suddenly appeared one day and pulled him out of class for good. The father brings him to an isolated area in Sardinia with the intent of molding the very young child into a sheep herder. The child is forced to watch the property in an isolated area, Baddevrùstana, while his father is off tending to business in Siligo, a provincial town close by. Since the only means of travel is by mule, Gavino finds himself alone on inhospitable turf.Gavino tries to make contact with other children who are forced to work for their fathers in the same way and he ends up being punished for it. The corporal punishment includes beatings with spiny tree branches which is mentioned in the autobiography. In the film it's not as clear, as we see the beatings with the branches from a distance. We do see a scene in the film where the father goes a little too far, where it appears Gavino loses consciousness for a short while (the father brings the son a cup of water to revive him).In another memorable scene, Gavino buys a broken accordion from two passersby and pays them with two sheep. Gavino lies to his father that he was attacked by bandits who stole the sheep. He shows his father his (self-inflicted) cut on the mouth but the father doesn't buy his story and cuts his rations.Due to the isolation of the male children as their fathers force them to work the entire time tending to the sheep, they have little or no contact with the opposite sex and develop some rather unhealthy sexual proclivities. A few scenes of bestiality are prominent during the first third of the film, including Gavino getting it on a with a mule and a group of boys masturbating with the aid of chickens they're attending to inside a coop.Once Gavino grows up, we meet him next when he's twenty. Gavino's father somehow inherits an olive grove under dubious circumstances. After a landowner is killed by a rival, Gavino's family helps the widow with the funeral arrangements and disposing of the property. The widow, in fear for her life, decides to move away from the area, but gives Gavino's father the olive grove as compensation for their help. Gavino's father plans to cede the grove to his offspring following his death but a frost destroys all the orchards in the area, including the family's olive grove.Gavino's father then decides to sell his herd and all this property, except for a garden. The children are shipped off as laborers but the father ships Gavino off to the Army. Before he leaves, the father teaches him some rudimentary math and reading so he can be accepted into the Army, as they will not accept someone who is completely illiterate.While in the Army, with the help of a friend, Gavino eventually learns how to read and write. He also completes a course in electronics and learns how to assemble a radio. When his enlistment period is over, against his father's wishes, he quits the army and decides to enroll at the University of Sardinia to study linguistics. Gavino's father forces him to work long hours in the garden which interferes with his studies and eventually the two have a physical confrontation. Now much stronger than his father, Gavino wrestles him down to the ground and humiliates the old man. Gavino concludes it's best that he leave his father's home and then goes off to the university to later become a distinguished professor of linguistics.It should be noted that the Taviani brothers are not out to condemn the brutality of the patriarchal society they're examining. While Gavino's father is sometimes brutal, in his eyes, he still has Gavino's best interests at heart. A good deal of the father's behavior toward his son is more 'tough love' than continuing acts of sadism. In many ways, he's ambivalent toward Gavino. In a most telling scene at the end, Gavino is looking for his valise under his father's bed, who's sitting right there after being humiliated after their wrestling match. As Gavino looks under the bed, the father is about to gently stroke his son's head but then clenches his fist, as if to strike him. In the denouement, we see that there were no further physical confrontations.Not everything in 'Padre Padrone' works. Most notably, none of the other family members are developed as fleshed-out characters. The sound quality of the film is also quite poor, as if we were listening to dialogue dubbed in the studio. Questionable experimental techniques are also utilized including animal and child voice-overs and sub-titles that seem to come out of the blue.'Padre Padrone' is comprised of a series of interesting vignettes about a world most of us are not familiar with. While the father may seem a bit one-note, the intensity between father and son is absorbing. 'Padre Padrone' can sometimes be infuriatingly slow-moving but one finds oneself waiting to find out how the relationship between the father and son is resolved. I'm not sure if this film is a true 'classic', but it's worth a look at least once, if not twice.

Hans Grob It is a rarer case that a film changes one's life, at least for a while. 'Padre Padrone' did it to me. The film made such an impression to me that first I read the book. Therefrom I got the details about the author's home village Siligo and its environment. As a child I was used to spend my holidays with mountain farmers, helping them here and there, thus I was familiar with rural and agricultural life.At the time I saw 'Padre Padrone', I was 20 years old, was used to do bicycle trips in my home country, but had never gone abroad. Sardinia was only one day by railways and one night by ship away, so I decided to go there.The first original place I came to was Sassari, where the author got his higher education and was also a professor. Some roaming through the hills brought me to his little village, Siligo. At the entrance, I noted an older man steering a cart pulled by a mule. This was not ordinary, because all other peasants used small and cheap motor-operated vehicles. Ledda's father being described as tenacious and closefisted, it is quite probable that the observed was him. But I didn't dare to ask him.Up from the village, I pedaled through family Ledda's pasture called Baddevrústana, where I noticed again a being standing on a trail: another mule.

el_master Seeing this film, reminded me of the typical situation of living outside the cities and in the fields.Gavino Ledda, lived a difficult life, which, the worst part, I think, was being isolated and with no contact from the outside of his sardinian life.I've seen that this movie is a polemic one towards being a good film or being a piece of trash, I'd go with the first one. I think that is a good film, making an adaptation of a book is always difficult, and the taviani brothers, did it succesfuly, ok, it is not a masterpiece either. but it's not a bad film, it applies the best it could to the low-budget they had. The Feat comes with the fact that it won the Palm D'Or in Cannes in 1977, and sometimes you might expect a piece of art, comparing it to the 'Tree of Wooden Clogs' that won the next Palm D'Or in 1978, Padre Padrone stands weak, but still I think it's a good movie, I own it, and sometimes watch again to take on some technichal details. If you have the chance see it, I can assure you that even if you don't like it, you won't consider it such a waste of time.