Michelangelo Frammartino • Director
“A political film on the relationship between man and nature”
by Camillo de Marco
19/05/2010 – Interview at the Cannes Film Festival 2010 with the Italian director after the presentation of The Four Times in the Directors‘ Fortnight
Co-produced by Italy, Germany and Switzerland, The Four Times [+] by Michelangelo Frammartino (being released in Italy on May 28 by Cinecittà Luce – see article) was a long time in the making. „It took us almost five years to shoot the film, and it was plagued with problems. Then we returned to Calabria, where the film is set, various times, to film the tree in different seasons“. The giant fir is one of protagonists of this extraordinary film, along with an old goat herder, a baby goat and a meters-tall mound of coal.
Nature plays a fundamental role in you film, which was selected for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.
Michelangelo Frammartino: It is a film about the bond between man
and nature. Cinema is one of those tools through which man is placed
at the centre. So cinema must leave man less alone. We tried to bring
out that which usually comprises the background of cinema and culture:
animals, plant, objects. They emerge in the film’s main sequence, and
take over the scene, in an attempt to create a new alliance with man, a
new balance.
The story is told through the environment, through the images themselves.
The challenge of the film was to have a unique, invisible character.
There are four protagonists, the goat herder, a baby goat, a tree and
the coal, but actually the true protagonist is a soul. We filmed bodies
to extract this inner presence. It is a film of surfaces, but made with
the determination and conviction that the camera can capture an essence.
Will audiences be able to gather this essence?
The film is made up of simple, almost primitive images. You have to make
an effort to move your head, search for all the pieces in the image.
You have to become a cameraman in a way, and design your landscapes; or
an editor, to put the film together. The viewers have to “finish” the
film, they have to take on this responsibility.
In the land of contradictions that is Calabria, you made a choice among these contradictions.
Yes, if you venture into its hinterlands, you find ancient and
fascinating traditions. If you ask the people of Alessandria why they
celebrate the tree festival, they tell you “It’s always been done.” The
significance lies behind that, you have to search for it.
There are also modern elements.
You can work on a theme or work through cinematic languages, modifying them, through which you can then „expose“ things. Because certain audience dependencies derive from seemingly innocuous languages. There are those who work in politics and television who are convinced that viewers are children to be led by the hand. I consider …