Goats star in beautiful film at Corrie

The Italian film to be shown on Sunday August 12th in Corrie Hall is called Le Quattro Volte (The Four Times) and stars an aged man and a fabulous cast of goats. Shot in the remote landscape of Calabria in southern Italy, the title comes from the four stages of living that Pythagoras thought we have to go through in our return to being part of the physical world after our death in this first life. Human existence is the first time, but then we become animal, then vegetable and finally mineral, in our return to the earth. But don’t worry, there is no spouting of complex metaphysics in this film. On the contrary, it is almost wordless, unfolding its story in ravishingly lovely pictures of the mountains, the peripheral village life – and the extraordinary goats.

In simple piety, the old man believes that the sacred dust in the little church will keep him strong and healthy, and stirs it into a drink each day. In fact, it is slowly killing him. When the goats find his body, they enter his home to keep watch over him. His man’s soul finds its next stage in a new-borne kid, which one day becomes separated from the herd and dies under a tall pine tree. The soul of the goat is then in the tree, which is chopped down and used by the villagers in their yearly fertility rite. The tree is in turn sold for charcoal, and thus does the old man’s spirit go through its four stages and return to the earth.

Directed by Michelangelo Frammartino, the film has extraordinary things to look at, from the intricate, expressive life of the goats, loosely organised by a highly intelligent dog, to the breath-taking sweep of mountains and a pagan fertility rite. Apart from bleating and birdsong, the film has virtually no spoken script, but the goats and the dog act with extraordinary ability, as though they completely understand what they are doing. Frammartino is modest about his stunning achievement, and tends to disclaim responsibility for it. He was ‘given’ the film, he says, and ‘did not will it through my own pre-existing idea.’ Certainly, the film embodies its own truth, leaving the astonished viewer wondering how on earth it was done.

The screening starts at 8.00pm in Corrie Hall, and is free to all comers. Non-members of the Corrie Film Club are very welcome, and a small donation to the running expenses of the hall would be much appreciated.

MORE ABOUT CORRIE FILM CLUB AT www.arranart.com/corriefilclub.html