I knew nothing about this Italian film until I found it in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, without this recommendation I would certainly not have watched it, directed by Francesco Rosi (Three Brothers (Tre Fratelli)). Based on the real-life memoir, Carlo Levi (A Fistful of Dollars' Gian Maria Volontè) is an intellectual, painter and writer, he also has a degree in medicine. He was arrested in 1935 by Mussolini's regime for his anti-fascist activities, and following his release he is forced into exile, and went to live in a small, isolated village in a remote town in Southern Italy, in the region of Lucania, known today as Basilicata. The landscape is beautiful, but the village is populated by poor and neglected inhabitants, barely surviving on the meagre harvest of the unyielding land. Eboli, the closest train station, is the last outpost of civilisation (such as it is),according to the local tales, even Christ, in his southward journey, went no further than Eboli, beyond that point there is only abandon, neglect, desolation and human despair. With local doctors not interested in peasants, and not trusted by them, Carlo begins to help the villagers in any way can, over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation. Also starring Paolo Bonacelli as Don Luigi Magalone, Alain Cuny as Barone Nicola Rotunno, Lea Massari as Luisa Levi, Irene Papas as Giulia Venere and François Simon as Don Traiella. The performance of Volontè is subtle but fine, there is not very much that happens in this film, and it is almost two and a half hours long, but perhaps that is the point, because the landscape is full of mostly misery, it certainly has memorable imagery, a fairly interesting drama. It won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film (the first foreign film in history to do so). Worth watching!

1997:

Checking some videos that my dad had recently brought,I spotted a double video of a wonderfully looking film.Opening the case,I was disappointed to find that the set only contained the second Video.

2014:

With having spent over 10 years trying to track a DVD/video version of the title,I decided to ask a DVD seller,who to my surprise revealed that he had recently gotten hold of the film! This led to me excitingly getting ready to finally pay a visit to Eboli.

View on the film:

Adapting Carlo Levi's (who would end up unsuccessfully running for the Senate as an independent communist in the 1963 elections)autobiography over a 200 minute running time (good to see they kept things short & sweet!) the screenplay by writer/ (along with Tonino Guerra and Raffaele La Capria)director Francesco Rosi disappointingly never fully expresses the passage of time that the movie attempts to cover,with the progression of Levi's relationship with the villages being one which progresses in sudden bursts,rather than a more gradual,natural pace.

Separating the 200 minutes as 4 TV episodes,the writers go into a superb amount of detail into the daily struggle that people in the south of Italy face,with every change in tax and the withdrawal of doctors that the government makes turning the village into a waste land which is on a completely different planet to the mighty Rome.

Creating a mysterious atmosphere,Rosi and cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis brilliantly use over-saturated colours to display the almost otherworldly landscape that Levi finds himself surrounded by,which is revealed in expertly handled wide-shots.As Levi starts to become friends with the village residences,Rosi heats up the colours into warm blues & yellows which show the warmth that has built up between Levi and the towns people.

Stealing every scene that he's in, Paolo Bonacelli gives a tremendous performance as fascist mayor Don Luigi Magalone,with Bonacelli giving Magalone a bumbling kick as he finds himself getting out smarted in every direction by Levi.Perfectly expressing Levi's initial uncomfortable feelings over stepping out of his comfort zone, Gian Maria Volonté gives a striking,subtle performance as Levi,with Gian Maria Volonté injecting Levi's voice with a real sense of gravitas,as he finds himself getting deeply involved with a community,from what was previously an unknown land.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is one of the best movies by Rossi, loyal to his tradition of neorealism. The movie depicts isolated rural-peasant life as an account of an urban intellectual – doctor, painter and a political activist who has been exiled to this remote area due to his political dissent during the Fascist rule in Italy. Not like similar movies in lenght, Crist Stopped at Eboli constantly absorbs audience, probably due to its realist description and selective representation of peasant life which is "frozen in time". The film pushes the audience to contemplate on philosophical aspects of the concept of time and it is heavily imbued with the display of social and political problems.

Rosi beautifully describes the destitute of the peasant settlers of this remote and isolated land, their ignorance and apolitical life, the deep rift between these people and state, and the irrelevance of the quasi-comic "victories" of the Il Duce to these people among many other social and political issues. Like Rosi's other movies here again neorealist representation goes along with the combination of documentary techniques and fictional context. Rosi lets the images to speak for themselves rather than the Gian Maria Volente who is in the central role in the movie.

In the movie (as it is in the book),the peasant life and urbanity are represented as two alien civilizations and antithesis of each other. These peasants have their own way of life, own customs, own aspirations and means of joy. What is going on Rome or the war in Abyssinia for "regaining the glory of the Rome" does not capture their interest. They are aware of the state through the taxes collected or men called for military service. In his letter, Levi describes the urban civilization as an antithesis of this peasant life which aspired throughout the history to "colonize" it.

The Christ Stopped at Eboli also pushes the audience to ponder on the philosophical meaning of history, its relevance nature and meaning. It describes this peasant life as "frozen in history", cut from outside life and lacking the understanding of time that we have. History as we understand is the history of "urban civilization". As peasants are alien to this civilization they are alien to this concept of time as well. In the village you stop counting days, hours as they become more and more irrelevant, there you return and base your life on the natural cycle of life which is based on seasons. In this sense the movie challenges our notion of history which is the history of the "city".

In this sense Christ Stopped at Eboli is very analogous to Y. K. Karaosmanoğlu's Yaban. Yaban is also the story of a Turkish intellectual war veteran who abandons amenities of Istanbul for the Central Anatolian village with the hope of finding his roots and alleviating the torments of his memoirs. However, to his disappointment he finds himself in an alien peasant "civilization" where he can not communicate to those people, can not be similar to them and can not understand their aspirations. What makes Yaban and Christ stopped at Eboli similar is their approach to dichotomous nature of human civilization and the concept of time. In both novels there is a representation of antagonist peasant and urban civilizations, and a relative concept of time. In both novels there is description of life which is "frozen in time" and alien to urbanity. Indeed the study of Yaban from this perspective can be insightful for the discussions of continuity and change in the History of Mediterranean, as Turkey is widely excluded from such studies. However when you read Christ stopped at Eboli and Yaban what strikes you first is the patterns of similarity in peasant life and experience of the intellectuals visiting these places. They can back both the universality of "two civilizations" argument and lounge duree approach in the Mediterranean area.