Pros: Good premise; skillful mix of realism, poetic touches, and surrealism; colorful cinematography; good lead performances
Cons: Poor character development; some overacting; unimaginative dialog
The Bottom Line: Recommended, especially for those interested in the history of World War II Italy, for its strengths, despite some significant weaknesses.
metalluk's Full Review: Night of the Shooting Stars
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
The Night of the Shooting Stars (a.k.a. Night of the Feast of St. Lawrence or La notte di San Lorenzo) is a wartime drama probably best described as a tragicomedy. It effectively depicts the hardships of wartime displacement and is enriched by the personal memories of its creators, the Taviani brothers.
Historical Background: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani were born in San Miniato, Italy, near Pisa. Vittorio was born in 1929, and Paolo in 1931. Both attended the University of Pisa and almost immediately thereafter turned to filmmaking, first as writers and, later, as co-directors. There first efforts, in the late fifties, were documentaries. Later, they collaborated with Valentino Orsini on A Man for Burning (1962) and I fuorilegge del matrimonio (1963). By the late sixties, they were making documentaries and then feature films relating mainly to leftwing, revolutionary politics. Their work went largely unnoticed outside of Italy until their breakout film, Padre Padrone (1977), which earned the Palme d’Or at Cannes and even had some box-office success in the U.S. They had additional major successes with The Meadow (1979) and The Night of the Shooting Stars (1981). The seventies were not a strong decade for Italian cinema, but against that stark backdrop, the work of the Tavianis stood out. Their style is partly reminiscent of the Italian neo-realists, with their emphasis on social concerns and documentary-like material, but their films feature lush cinematography, rather than the gritty, grainy look of the neo-realist films of the forties.
The Story:The Night of the Shooting Stars is structured as an extended flashback, framed by opening and closing scenes that take place perhaps 20 years later. A young mother, Rosanna (Sabina Vannucchi), while putting her infant to bed, notes that the date in August 10th, which is the night of the Feast of St. Lawrence, also known as "The Night of the Shooting Stars." The mother tells her infant that according to the tradition in Tuscany, each shooting star makes a wish come true. She wishes for the strength to tell the story of another fateful Night of the Shooting Stars, back in 1944.
In August of 1944, the Allied Forces were pushing their way up the boot of Italy, meeting resistance all along the way. The Germans were giving ground grudgingly and also leaving behind desperately brutal paramilitary units of Italian fascists, called brown-shirts. In the small rural town of San Martino, the Nazis, nearing the end of their control of the region, order all of the town's citizens to gather together in the cathedral. Any found elsewhere at the appointed time will be shot immediately. The unfortunate citizens are in a quandary. They fear that the Nazis intend a mass execution, especially since a German soldier was recently killed and the killer not identified. Half of the citizens decide to trust in the assurances of the Bishop (Giorgio Naddi) and obey the order. The other half, under the leadership of Galvano (Omero Antonutti), an old peasant of perhaps sixty, decide to take their chances fleeing southward during the night, hoping to reach the American liberating force. Both choices are fraught with danger.
The story follows mainly the flight of the refugees. They depart at dusk, wearing dark clothing. The party consists of about two-dozen citizens of San Martino, of all ages. One is the pretty six-year-old Rosanna (Samanta Boi), who later, as an adult, is also the story's narrator. Another is Concetta (Margarita Lozano), an old aristocratic woman who was once Galvano's childhood sweetheart. There's an assortment of young men, who are either members of the Resistance or deserters from the Italian Army. There's a pair of newlyweds and the new bride is already ripe with child. As they flee, they stop just long enough to listen to the explosions from San Martino, which erupt as scheduled, at 3:00 A.M.
The emphasis of the film is on the intimate details of survival, as refugees on the road. We observe the struggle to find food and to stretch out what they have. There're the little problems like finding private places to urinate or bathe. There's one adolescent girl whose main concern is how and with whom to lose her virginity if it comes down to her last night alive. Then, there's a bit of a romantic subplot involving the two old-timers, Galvano and Concetta. I won't try to describe in detail how the story develops except to mention what are perhaps the three most memorable scenes. The first of the poignant moments is an encounter between Rosanna and another little girl with two American GI's. Unable to communicate verbally with one another, Rosanna and one of the Americans instead get into a game of funny faces. The young actress who plays Rosanna proves especially adept at conjuring up the most ridiculous facial distortions and cross-eyed visages that you've ever seen. The GI, though he tries his best to mimic each of her antics, is no match for her at all.
The second remarkable scene is a shootout in a hayfield between the refugees and a unit of Italian fascists. Both groups are from the same village and many on each side are either related or childhood friends. One of the fascists, for example, is a cousin of Rosanna. So, ironically, as the young men shoot one another and as some of them fall dying, their comments to one another are the kind that one might make to an old high school friend after a few years of being out of touch.
The third memorable scene occurs in the immediate aftermath of the hayfield shootout. Two of the fascists are a father and son duo, Father Marmugi (Massimo Sarchielli) and Marmugi Junior (Giovanni Guidelli), who is just fifteen. It is ironic, first of all, that the fifteen year-old delights in pleasing his father, making sure that his father is watching, for example, when he shoots one of the non-Fascist villagers. After the hayfield shootout, the non-Fascists have gained the upper hand (at the cost of several lives) and corner the Marmugis in the apple orchard. Father Marmugi pleads for his son's life, but the partisans are in no mood to listen, having seen the boy's murderous ways for themselves. They shoot the boy dead. The distraught father commits suicide moments later.
Themes: One theme, though not the most central one, is the inability of the human mind to grasp the enormity of tragedy as it is unfolding but not fully formed. The Taviaris make us privy to the interior thoughts of the various characters as they anticipate their homes being blown to bits and having to flee in the middle of the night. Many of the characters, especially the young ones, are excited – almost thrilled – by the prospect of an adventure. Rosanna's viewpoint, in particular, is limited by her childish innocence. It all seems very exciting to be running off in the middle of the night with her family. It's a natural enough human response, and yet it seems such a strange reaction to impending crisis.
The more weighty theme of the film is the absurdity of the various members of a small village coalescing into two opposing camps and then killing one another willy-nilly. The murderous rampage falls just short of fratricide, as cousins kill cousins. All warfare is quasi-fratricidal, to an extent. Any knowledgeable genealogist understands that we are all cousins in one degree of relationship or another, yet we cling to this false notion of the "otherness" and foreign quality of people with different ethnic backgrounds, racial makeup, religious beliefs, or political affiliations. For me personally, my greatest sense of sorrow in watching The Night of the Shooting Stars comes from being reminded how long its been since American soldiers could be viewed in other countries as liberators or defenders of freedom.
Production Values: The script for The Night of the Shooting Stars is semi-autobiographical, drawing on the recollections of the Taviani brothers of peasants actually forced to flee their homes that had been mined by the Fascists. The film's humor is sometimes ribald. There's one scene of a group of adolescent lads hiding near the spot where the women go to urinate and masturbating when a particularly cute young lady arrives for her turn. Another funny scene is when the town prankster blasts his phonograph recording of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, tricking the townspeople into hoping that it is the arrival of the liberators.
Apart from the pieces of humor, the script is both the film's main strength and its main weakness. The overriding weakness is that there are a lot of nearly co-equal characters, precious few of whom are adequately developed to earn our empathy. It's downright difficult, at times, to keep track of who just got killed and whether we should care. It's easy enough to tell the fascists (who all wear the brown-shirted uniforms) from the non-fascists, but individual identities tend to blur. Ironically, Marmugi Junior, who is a vicious killer despite his youth, is the most clearly portrayed of the characters that end up dead, and he's not where our sympathies are meant to lie. Neither the dialog nor the performances are good enough to provide clear identities to the number of characters that the Tavianis try to put in front of us.
The cinematography of the countryside of Tuscany is gorgeous, though it's sometimes almost too much so. The rustic beauty sometimes works against the poignancy of the story. The greatest strength of the film, however, is the surreal element occasionally introduced through both script and cinematography, most obviously when the distraught six-year-old Rosanna, in the midst of the firefight in the field, conjures up the Greek warriors that her grandfather has told her about. They appearing in the nick of time to slay the enemy with spears. At its best moments, the film effectively blends realism and poetry into something approaching mythic grandeur. Unfortunately, these moments come only in brief flashes. The soundtrack consists mainly of a sentimental score by Nicola Piovani, augmented by some strains from Verdi's Manzoni Requiem.
The cast mixes some professionals with a larger number of non-professional actors. Unfortunately, the lack of professionalism among some of the cast manifests in some rather clumsy overacting, at times. There's no question, however, about Omero Antonutti's professionalism or considerable skill as an actor. He played the part of the father in the Taviani's earlier film, Padre Padrone (1977). Margarita Lozano, who played Concetta, is another accomplished performer, with appearances in Viridiana (1961) and A Fistful of Dollars (1964). I also liked Samanta Boi as the young Rosanna and Giovanni Guidelli as Marmugi Junior.
Bottom-Line: This is a film with some genuine merits and demerits. I'm giving it four-stars, but that reflects some five-star qualities and some three-star aspects. The basic premise is strong, as is the poetic and surreal elements, a few of the performances, and the colorful cinematography. The weaknesses include too many characters inadequately developed for empathy, some overacting in some roles, and dialog that is sometimes weak. It makes for a decent night of entertainment but less than a night of shooting stars. You might want to put it on your list of films to see, but not ahead of any priority items you've got there already. The MGM DVD version of The Night of the Shooting Stars is in Italian and has a running time is 107 minutes. There are subtitle options in English, French, and Spanish. The sole extra is the original theatrical trailer.
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