Review of Fiorile

Introduction

In order to keep his children amused and quiet during the long journey from France to Tuscany to visit their grandfather, they are told the legend of the Benedetti family curse that began during the Napoleonic invasion of Italy. Jean (Michael Vartan), a French soldier guarding a chest of gold coins, briefly abandoned his task to fraternise with Elisabetta Benedetti (Galatea Ranzi) during which time her brother Corrado (Claudio Bigagli) made off with the gold. The French told the villagers that Jean would be executed unless the gold was returned by dawn; Corrado and the Bendettis kept the money, Jean was executed and so the curse began. Former friends of the Benedettis begin calling them Maledetti - thus changing the name from `well said` to `cursed`.

The film covers the 200 year history of the `cursed` Benedetti family, using the road trip section as a framing device to link the four vignettes: the Napoleonic wars, the beginning of the 20th century, World War II and the present.

Video

Disappointingly presented in a letterboxed 1.66:1 transfer, the film looks fairly good, aside from some softness, but the letterboxing is almost unforgivable for a new release and the lack of an anamorphic transfer is undoubtedly due to financial considerations.

Audio

The Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 Italian is perfectly clear and adequate, but it`s a shame that the subtitling is not error-free, has occasionally been literally translated from the Italian and contains such mistakes as: "abou my desire", "What have you two done to myself?" and "Let me find the table laid".

Michael Vartan was born in France and delivers his lines as Jean fairly well, yet it seems that they are dubbed, as are his lines when he returns as Massimo Benedetti in the third section.

Features

The only supplementary material is an 82 minute interview with the Taviani brothers, which will be of great interest to their fans, but as a newcomer to them and their films, I found it quite dry and uninteresting.

Conclusion

Directed by the prolific and acclaimed Taviani brothers, there was obviously a weight of expectation surrounding `Fiorile`, yet it only managed a Palme D`Or nomination at Cannes - it obviously is not considered amongst Paulo and Vittorio Taviani`s best work. This is the only film of theirs I`ve seen so I`m not in a position to compare it with their more celebrated pictures. However, I found the story interesting, and the structure of the film works well. To maintain the family resemblance, Michael Vartan, Galatea Ranzi and Claudio Bigagli all appear as different characters throughout the story, which emphasises the generational continuity of the curse.

Although I enjoyed the film, I didn`t feel that any of the vignettes, bar the first, were sufficiently long or deep enough to develop the characters to the point where I empathised with them. There was also the unexplained sparing of Massimo Benedetti from the firing squad, giving the impression that the Taviani brothers were being over-ambitious and trying to fit too much into 115 minutes. `Fiorile` is a fine film, despite its flaws.

This DVD is only likely to appeal to fans of the Taviani brothers` work, who will obviously want to watch it, despite the letterboxed transfer and subtitling issues, and will probably also enjoy the in-depth interview. This is undoubtedly a release for a niche audience and it`s a shame for them that Arrow Films didn`t put more time and money into producing a better disc.