San Michele aveva un gallo (1972)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Directors:

Paolo Taviani
Vittorio Taviani

Writers:

Leo Tolstoy (story)
Paolo Taviani (writer) ...

Release Date:

5 March 1975 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal activities, Italian International member Giulio Manieri holds...

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Giulio Brogi	...	Giulio Manieri
Daniele Dublino	...	The Prison Guard
Renato Cestiè
Vito Cipolla
Virgina Ciuffini
Marcello Di Martire
Vittorio Fanfoni
Francesco Sanvilli
Giuseppe Scarcella
Renato Scarpa	...	Battistrada
Sergio Serafini	...	Guelfi
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cinzia Bruno
Stefano Guerrieri
Renato Niccolai
Samy Pavel
Lorenzo Piani

Also Known As:

St. Michael Had a Rooster

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Ager Cinematografica

intellectual anarchist in end of 800's

for those hard-core taviani brothers fans, this is a treat. Slow going and with little action, the story recounts the attempts of an anarchist to start a revolutionary movement in rural italy in the late '800s. His attempts fail and is incarcerated for a decade in isolation. Cut off from human contact, in order to keep his mental sanity, he stages simulated political meetings in his cell, and fastasizes gourmet meals while eating prison food. At the end of the movie, in a rare outing, he exchanges words with a younger and newer generation of political prisoners, but instead of finding common ground, realizes that his ideology has been ignored by the generations that followed. A slow movie, like all Taviani films, but very symbolic. A rare "political" movie, that US audiences might have trouble following without knowing much about the political movements that existed in Europe in the 800s. Slightly similar in concept to "Cristo Si E' Fermato a Eboli", the latter being more pleasant with its travelogue mix of Southern Italy.