The recently redistributed “Tree of Wooden Clogs” won the top award at the Cannes festival in 1978. Yet some consider this three hour film to be rather boring. How do we reconcile these two points of view?
There is a scene toward the end in which some nuns and their guests (a newly wed couple) are eating. Visually the scene reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper” except that there is neither a central figure nor any of the comraderie that da Vinci shows. Rather we see stiff spines and hear the clicking of spoons on austere bowls. After 20 seconds a female choir begins to sing, beautifully. This goes on for another minute while we view the same scene with intermittent cuts to the faces of the newlyweds. Some viewers will think 80 seconds is way too long for this scene, but the visuals as well as the music are very appealing.
Similarly contrived scenes in “Tree of Wooden Clogs” show northern Italy's farm technology ca 1898, including how planting and harvesting were done, how butchering was done, how clog shoes were made, and so on. Some scenes are shown with relevant background sounds, others with liturgical Bach organ music. All together there is much here to interest those of you who are curious about technology and farming.
Director Ermanno Olmi began his career making documentaries for a utility company. This film builds upon that experience. It is a docudrama , a kind of feature film that documents peasant life in Lombardy over a hundred years ago. Olmi includes all those aspects of peasant life which people would share publicly. Sorry, no sex.
As a feature film, the storyline is an episodic mixture of four different stories. These concern:
A family who send a son to a village school because a priest talks them into it.
A family headed by a widow and on the brink of disaster.
A family-to-be whose courtship and marriage we see.
A somewhat dysfunctional head of household.
Families live in separate apartments of a rather primitive, rural building facing a large courtyard with stalls for animals. The setup, known as a cascina, is rather like modern cooperative housing but for the fact that it is a working farm and almost everything is owned by a feudal landlord who can evict any family he becomes displeased with.
During the film's first hour most scenes involve a blending of all four story lines and the characters are difficult to keep straight. Happily the four stories separate during the remainder of this very long film.
One theme that carries through the whole film is Olmi's Catholicism.
The rosary is cooperatively repeated many times.
The newlyweds adopt a baby from the nuns who will pay a yearly stipend until the child is 15.
There is a village priest who frequently visits the cascina and tries to care for his flock in more ways than theological.
When dealing with a sick cow, the widow clearly believes the more you put into your prayers, the more likely you are to get what you need.
Had I been asked, I probably would not have supported the selection of this film for the Cannes Palme d'Or. I suspect those who did were influenced by a desire to support its underlying political message.
This message involves inequality and how differently the rural peasants perceive this inequality from the way the urban proletariat does. Rural peasants visiting Milan see signs of unrest with indifference. They do not know that this city is in the middle of its 1898 food riots. Because they do not care about what they see, Olmi found no reason to tell us about it either. Connecting those dots requires a bit of knowledge of Italian history.
Members of the landord class come across as parasites who haven’t evolved the restraint necessary to make sure their hosts can survive. Inspite of their access to education and leisure many of the landlord class are seen to lack the enjoyment classical music that their illiterate peasants have. I wish I could say this comes across as a poignant irony but it does not. Perhaps the granting of the Palme d'Or added a political message to this film that it cannot quite achieve on its own.
The “Tree of Wooden Clogs” is classified as Italian neorealism. Consistent with that classification Olmi chose Lombard speaking nonprofessional actors, but he also included more documentary like scenes than is customary with Italian neorealism. I like to think of the “Tree of Wooden Clogs” as an artfully enhanced documentary. Yes there is fiction, but it is the kind of fiction that demonstrates reality better than a mere showing of facts could. Fiction, yes. Drama, not so much.
If you have zero interest in the imagery, the music, the subject, or the message, you are not going to like this film. On the other hand, if two of those things appeal to you then you will appreciate it. If all four of those things appeal to you, then you will think it is worth the Palme d’Or.