Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

kosmasp And it tries very hard ... unfortunately it never truly delivers. The story as it is has many facets that are interesting, but it never really get's interesting for the viewer. While the actors seem to try to make the best of it, you never really comprehend, where all this is trying to go, what it tries to tell you. It's a shame, because it would've been a really good movie ...The downfall might be the structure (I can't really put my finger on it). Different time-lines that do collide, some interestingly some not so much. Plot threads opened, some resolved in an unsatisfying way and issues come and go leaving you a bit uncaring about the characters and their problems ... Well it's independent, but I still had higher hopes from this movie.

voacor I just watched this film with my wife on a Netflix DVD. It is a very slow-paced film, but it captivates you and does what a great film should always do-- it transports you to another world and allows you to enter the lives of other people. In this case, we see the world through the eyes of three brothers, each of whom has long ago moved away from the impoverished village in southern Italy where they grew up. Each has taken on a distinct vocation-- The eldest is a respected judge, a member of the establishment, who, in spite of threats from terrorists, continues to carry out his duty. The middle brother is a liberal, charitable man who is trying to help kids in trouble and whose heart bleeds for the wretched of the earth. The youngest is a Don Juan, who migrated to the northern city of Turin to find work and got mixed up in the radical labor movements that are close to, if not part of, the very terrorist organization the elder brother is trying to stop.The three brothers engage in conversation about these matters and we see their thoughts in dreams and flashbacks. But what really grounds the film is the old man, their father, and his remembrances of his recently departed wife. His tenderness with his granddaughter also gives the movie a sweet touch. In the end, this film leaves you richer for the experience of having watched it.

jotix100 The disturbing opening scene is a nightmare that Rocco Giuranna is having. The rats that are scavenging a trash site seem to herald what he and his two brothers will face as the three come together because the death of their mother. Rocco is a social worker living in a state reformatory where he is in charge of young boys that are in the institution to be re-educated. Unfortunately, they will probably will go to be hard criminals when they are released from the Naples correctional facility.Raffaele, the older brother, is a judge in Rome. He has been asked to preside over an important case coming to trial that involves local terrorists. Italy was living harsh days at the time and judges were the target for paid assassins or revolutionaries with an agenda for eliminating those that dared to speak against them. The upcoming trial has a profound effect on Raffaele's wife, who knows it probably means the death of her husband.The third brother, Nicola, is a factory worker. Like his brothers, he fled the poor South of Italy in search for a better future in Torino. What he finds is unhappiness as he rebels against the firm he feels is enslaving him and his co-workers. His marriage has suffered because his wife has cheated on him and they are separated.It is at this junction that all three brothers are summoned to come home as their mother has died. Donato, the older father, is lost, as he ponders what is going to become of him. His memories of happier times, with the woman he adored, keep flooding back to him as his three sons come home to mourn for their loss. The three brothers, in turn, are haunted by their own memories of their present lives and their youth in the small town in Puglia before they left home.Francesco Rosi, adapted Andrei Platonov's novel "The Third Son", together with Tonino Guerra, one of the best writers in the Italian cinema. Mr. Rosi, a director who shows an affinity for presenting ordinary people in difficult situations in their lives, scored a big success with this film. He knows these characters. The director makes an enormous contribution in the way he deals with the emotions of the principals in this film about the love of the land, on the one hand of Donato, the father, and the restlessness of the three sons that abandoned their birth place in search of a better living. Rosi's triumph is in showing us that ultimately, it's Donato, the father, the one that stayed behind who is the one that lived a better life than their three sons.The director achieves a triumph in the way he directed the four principals in the film. Philippe Noiret, Michele Placido, and Vittorio Mezzogiorno do an excellent job in bringing to life, Raffaele, Nicola and Rocco. It is however Charles Vanel, the veteran French actor who stays with the viewer because of his exquisite portrayal of the older Donato. Mr. Vanel hardly utters a word throughout the movie, yet, his presence is so powerful that at times one tends to forget the others. Mr. Vanel's Donato is one of the best creations in his long film career in France.Pasqualino DiSantis' cinematography captures the essence of what Francesco Rosi was looking for. The director and his photographer were well attuned indeed. Ruggero Mastroianni's film editing shows once more his elegant style of putting the material together. Francesco Rosi is the one that brought all the elements together in this dramatic and satisfactory film.

two-rivers An old man goes to the telegraph office and transmits the news of the decease of their mother to his three sons, who live scattered all over Italy. So much for the initial situation, which Rosi has taken from a Platonov story.The sons, who then arrive one by one in the South Italian village of the father, are far apart from each other, not only concerning their age. They have also taken completely different roads in their professional careers and in their spiritual developments. The first one, a judge, has to deal with terrorist cases and every day has to reckon with being killed cold-bloodedly by the mafia. The second one could almost be one of the terrorists himself, at least he strives for societal changes, being a worker and a trade union member. The third one has dedicated his life completely to the fulfilment of utopian educational targets and looks after maladjusted juvenile delinquents in a boarding school.The Italy presented by Rosi is as disunited as the chosen family. It is not only geographically split into two incompatible halves, the North and the South, but also sociologically into different classes that stand facing each other irreconcilably. But "Tre fratelli" has more to offer than just regional or social conflicts. Life itself becomes the center of attention, apart from the three brothers, who represent middle age, also the old father and his eight-year-old grand-daughter are dominating protagonists. These two are able to form a curious alliance of old age and youth, whereas the brothers are just talking at cross purposes in senseless discussions and only reach a sentiment of unison through the mourning at their mother's funeral.The little girl wants to know a lot about the past, and the old man is willing to remember. He finally recalls the perhaps most blissful moment of his life: Shortly after his wedding he accompanies his wife to the beach, where they both enjoy a short spell of light-heartedness, just before the hard struggle of earning one's living will demand all their forces. There the woman is playing in the sand, lost in thought, but then she suddenly rouses from her daydream and calls out the name of her husband: She can't find her wedding ring, which she has removed accidentally, and now it seems to be lost in the sand. Everything is at stake, but tragedy can be averted for the man keeps his cool, rushes to the next house and comes back with a sieve. A little later he holds the recovered ring in his hands triumphantly.This event seems to have been meaningful for the further living together of the couple, only the late arrival of Death intervenes in this apparently undisturbed harmony. The feelings of the old man are now marked by sorrow and grief because of the loss, but not by bewilderment or anger. These are the laws of Nature, which he has to obey. In the last take he therefore just slips on that ring again, the ring that signifies one thing in particular to this man who is about to reach the end of his journey. It shows him the reality of his life, that short spell of time that has slipped away so incredibly fast but of which at least he has the comforting certainty of having used it well.