Lost and Beautiful (2015)
Pulcinella, a foolish servant, is sent from the depths of Mt. Vesuvius to present-day Campania to grant the last wish of poor shepherd Tommaso, who spent his whole life looking after a crumbling Bourbon estate: his mission is to save a young buffalo named Sarchiapone. Pulcinella takes the buffalo north and the two servants, man and beast, travel through a beautiful and lost Italy.
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Thanks for the memories!
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
The first must-see film of the year.
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
The director was faced with a problem when the subject of his initial movie died part way through filming. His subject - the volunteer caretaker of the palace of Carditello spends years cleaning up rubbish on that site. We watch him do some of this but there is no real interaction until he rescues a male buffalo calf who has been left to die.The story then switches narrators and it is the calf who takes over the story. There is some weird setup involving a mythical Pulcinella character which is used as the bridging story to switch timelines. I saw this in a festival because it was Italian and it sounded like it would be unusual. Perhaps those familiar with Italian culture would understand more about the Pulcinella character who seems to regain his soul later in the movie although I couldn't be sure. There are some great ideas here. If I had been the editor I would have dropped most of the caretaker sequence as that raises more questions than it answers and the film should have been much shorter.