This might be the most broadly appealing film I've seen from Huillet/Straub. Bleak, challenging and funny, it's also deeply human in ways that even non-cineasts can relate to. Best known for their extraordinary landscapes, H&S were also masters of the close-up. The last shot of the outraged historian in History Lessons is equaled here by the final image of the mother in this film. Grotesque, ignorant (and leftist) but also deeply vulnerable, the scolding and hypocritical mother might be, in the conventional sense, the greatest character H&S ever brought to screen.
6.8Keywords: woman director
Plot summary
A Sicilian man that emigrated to the United States of America fifteen years ago return to his hometown in Sicily to visit his mother. He has conversations with a orange picker in the train station and then with another passenger in the train. When he meets his mother, she discloses revelations about his childhood and her sentimental life. Last he has a small talk with a knife-sharpener.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 615.19 MB
1000*720
Italian 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
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Film Review - Sicily! (1999) 7.7/10
"A 66-minute Brechtian elocution executed with stone cold precision, Straub-Huillet's SICILY! is a reworking of Elio Vittorini's novel CONVERSATIONS IN SICILY, a man returns to Sicily, his fatherland from New York after a Homeresque absence, encounters a fruit vendor when he disembarks, several passengers on the train (one of whom decries the stink of underclass!),visits his mother and finally engages a conversation with a knife-grinder (a faux-father figure who defies conventionality, he never sharpens knives or scissors). "
read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks
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Boring Return Home
A Sicilian that emigrated to the United States of America fifteen years ago return to his hometown in Sicily to visit his mother. He has conversations with a orange picker in the train station and then with another passenger in the train. When he meets his mother, she discloses revelations about his childhood and her sentimental life. Last he has a small talk with a knife-sharpener.
"Sicilia!" is a boring movie about the homecoming of a man after many years living abroad. Along his journey back home, the situation of the unsophisticated Sicily is disclosed through his conversations with his countrymen. This low-budget black and white film might be interesting for people from Sicily or from First World Countries, but I found it dull and painful to watch. This movie was released in Brazil on VHS by Cult Films Distributor. My vote is three.
Title (Brazil): "Gente da Sicília" ("People of the Sicily")