I watched this film twice in the 1980s -I think on BBC-but it may have been on channel 4 at the time and was completely captivated by it. it has a haunting quality to it that is hard to surpass and will always stay with you.. Nicola Piovanni composed the music sound score and this Maestro of Music to mood -(see if you can, Caro Diario -Dear Diary Dir.Nanni Moretti as a more modern example of the art) is virtually unknown to the general public over here . Very Sad!.. It is also a complete nonsense that in this technically advanced digital age it is impossible to find a print of this CLASSIC movie -that all film buffs really ought to see-with English SUBTITLES! Spanish ,French and Dutch subtitle versions are around and findable on DVD but ALAS... non comprarlo Inglese!-How Insular! In addition, A Bande Originale -Soundtrack "KAOS" was released on Cd in the early 90s on the Milan label (Europe-USA and S.America?),but again the niche British public not catered for. Bizarrely, when shown on TV in the 80s the movie carried English subtitles-so how does this work then? Anyway back to the film. Enjoy the opening visually stunning shots of the Crow "eagling" its way through mountain landscape and let the accompanying music sink in and you're hooked!.without going into detail-thats for you to discover-the Taviani Bros really bring out the spiritual essence of the Sicilian persona characterised in Pirandello's daily Novellas.It is a flighted sentiment soaring over a gravitated earthy reality-Sicilian Style.This is Cinema at its most alluring.Do see it if it becomes available.

There's no shortage of whimsy, enchantment or madness in this quartet of stories from backwoods Sicily, adapted from the writings of Luigi Pirandello. In the first a troubled old woman recounts a painful episode from her past and explains why she can no longer face her only honest son; the second tells of a newly married husband afflicted with insane, bestial longings each month during the full moon; a hunchbacked handyman in another story mends a large terracotta jar using a magic adhesive, only to find himself unable to climb out from inside it. There's no unifying thread between each segment besides an obvious love of folk tales and filmmaking, and the lack of any consistent narrative focus can make the three-plus hour running time a major test of stamina. The final story is by far the weakest, but the dreamlike epilogue, with Pirandello himself recalling a long lost childhood memory, is worth the challenge. The film was shot (in lovely rustic earth tones) on location in Sicily.

Four tales of Nobel Prize for Literature winner Luigi Pirandello brought to screen with a male raven hatching eggs with a bell tied on its neck (forcibly) connecting the tales. A fifth segment has the author conversing with his dead mother and being driven home in a horse carriage by Saro a minor character from the segment "Moon Sickness." The intertwining of the 4 tales and the real characters of the author can be owed to the directorial and screenplay writing skills of the Taviani brothers and the acclaimed screenplay writer Tonino Guerra. The opening quote of Pirandello that he was born in "Kaos" literally, the name of the forest area with Greek origins of the word, is an important bit of information provided by the directors on why they chose the title of the film. The opening helicopter shot of the geographical area of the four tales, mirroring the flight of the raven, is another highlight.

The Taviani brothers ability to film the "day-for-night" sequences in the segment "Moon Sickness" stands out. They also have a penchant to cast their favorite actors. Omero Antonutti plays the author Pirandello, after major roles in "Padre Padrone," "Good Morning. Babylon" and "The Night of the Shooting Stars." Actress Margarita Lozano's performance in the opening segment "The Other Son" is commendable: she worked with the Tavianis in "The Night of the Shooting Stars", Bunuel's "Viridiana" and Sergio Leone's western "Fistful of Dollars." The use of the comedy duo of Franco Franchi and and Ciccio Ingrassia (the Italian equivalent of Hollywood's Abbott and Costello) in the segment "The Jar" was admirable casting.