Le Quattro Volte

Plot

The film comprises four phases, or 'turns', following Pythagoras. The turning of the phases occurs in Calabria where Pythagoras had his sect in Crotone. Pythagoras claimed he had lived four lives and this with his notion of metempsychosis is the structure of the film showing one phase and then turning into another phase. A famous anecdote is that Pythagoras heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog.

This phase, as charcoal is not a mineral in any modern definitions, points to a remembering of bio-cultural processes.

The fire and smoke point to carbon at the heart of the homes in the village delivered by the truck evoking human reason as the final understanding of the interaction of these turns and the true place of the human in the scheme of things.

Production

There is virtually no dialogue in the film. The film was written and directed by Michelangelo Frammartino and stars Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano and Artemio Vellone.

Reception

Le Quattro Volte has received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 92% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 8/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system, with the consensus "Birth, death, and transformation are examined in Le Quattro Volte, a profound and often funny meditation on the cycles of life on earth." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 80, based on 16 reviews, which indicates "Generally favorable reviews."

Jonathan Romney, writing in The Independent on Sunday, described Le Quattro Volte as "both magnificent and magnificently economical," remarking "I like to think that it's possible for cinema to make profound cosmological statements without having to go all Cecil B. DeMille." Romney finds the film "the freshest and the deepest film I've encountered in a while," and "one of those rare films that anyone could enjoy, whether or not they normally care for slow Italian art cinema."