I'm yet to see Ermanno Olmi's acclaimed The Tree of Wooden Clogs, which is also my favourite director Mike Leigh's all-time favourite film, but I intend to soon, so it was interesting diving into his career with his latest. Greenery Will Bloom Again is a sparse and slight film. It's only just over an hour and doesn't opt for complex characters, conflict or narrative. It's more about the melancholy of the mood and the balance between hope and hopelessness in war. The genre is one of the few that can get away without selecting a character to lead the whole piece, ala Malick's The Thin Red Line, so it feels like a cluster of sequences surrounding a situation, but that helps retain its ethereal atmosphere. It's a little held back by the fact that it's been promoted for the 100th Anniversary of its events and for the viewing of people who are suckers for the material, but it's profound final line bolsters the whole film to a transcendent level that shows just how intelligent and sensitive the film was the whole time.
8/10
8/10