Night of the Shooting Stars (DVD)

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Magical realism makes an uneasy match with memories of WW2 survival in the Taviani Brothers´ "Night of the Shooting Stars" (1982).

I have never been a great fan of the Tavianis (Paolo and Vittorio) whose films, to my taste at least, overreach for the oh-so-tasteful, oh-so-elegiac tone that arrives in a shrink-wrapped, ready-for-critical-praise package. All of their films are immaculately filmed which, again to my tastes, is part of what makes them feel so generically art-house, but sometimes the formula works quit well. I enjoyed "Night Sun," the Tavianis´ adaptation of Tolstoy´s "Father Sergius" quite a bit, though I must admit that I had to go back and read my review before I could really remember anything about it. "Padre Padrone," their 1977 Palme d´Or Winner, is another standout though not really a personal favorite. More often than not, they crank out tediously dignified literary adaptations like "Elective Affinities" (1996).

"Night of the Shooting Stars" places on the higher end of the Tavianis´ work. Framed as a flashback, an adult Cecilia tells her child a bedtime story about her own youth. When she was six years old in 1944, she and her family and neighbors fled their home town to escape certain death at the hands of Nazi occupiers. Though Cecilia tells the story, it is not told from her point of view; the film has multiple protagonists, in fact. Rather, the tone of the story is colored by a child´s half-understanding perspective that can simultaneously perceive wonder and horror with the acceptance that stems from not yet knowing exactly how things are "supposed" to be. Even death can be another matter-of-fact event that only registers on the periphery.

The film has the feel of a fairy tale, but one of those old-fashioned Grimm Brothers´ style fairy tale where happy endings are hardly guaranteed. There are numerous beautiful encounters with nature, not to mention intimate encounters between people (that a young Cecilia surely could not have been aware of), but there is also brutality. One of the film´s set pieces features a prolonged and frightening shoot-out in a wheat field in which enemies and allies are disoriented (along with viewer) and which stops and starts as many times as, well, a real battle might.

It´s a remarkable scene, and worth a recommendation all by itself. The film also explores several adult relationship forged as much out of necessity as genuine emotion (though I suppose there is no real difference when death looms constantly.) Most interesting is the budding romance between two of the older refugees, whose youthful affection had hardened into a lifetime of resentment.