Le Quattro Volte

Dir. Michelangelo Frammartino. 2010, 88 mins. 35mm. In Italian with English subtitles. With Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano, Artemio Vellone. This beautiful work of fiction begins with an aging shepherd in a medieval Calabrian village who tends his herd of goats. With his buoyant dog by his side, he guides the goats out through tall grasses where they graze during the day and back to their pen at night. He is up with the dawn, but the sun is setting on his life; the years have taken their toll. This lush visual portrait is the first of four accounts where we witness the soul of a man’s journey through the matter of his natural habitat. These stories unfold through close details and without words—while the film features actors, a barking dog and bleating goats are the only calls we hear. By focusing on the textures of this place, and the cyclical pathways that people, animals, and organic materials travel within it, Le Quattro Volte invites meditation and elegantly offers space to wonder about the ways our daily rhythms, along with the things and beings we touch, shape our destiny.