khatcher-2 Review of The Tree of Wooden Clogs

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

A visual poem that leaves warm feelings glowing in the soul

[9/10 · 5 September 2001]

Though by no means a believer I accept being called agnostic or atheist by anyone who is wont to label or categorize anybody into determined groups. However, I would like to consider myself and be considered a humanist, maybe a christian with a small `c'. This philosophy has allowed me to accept all kinds of religions, except when people start killing each other, and what for me is an undeniable fact: religious themes were the basis from which sprang most of today's cultures, whether music or paintings, or even on celluloid. Well-known non-believers have produced wondrous works of religiously-inspired art: Rachmaninov, Berlioz, Buñuel, among many others. Even Scorsese has touched on religious matters. It is most certainly not necessary to be a believer to see and capture the beauty of `L'Albero degli Zoccoli', Ermanno Olmi's delightful little masterpiece. It is not necessary to be Catholic, either: one only needs human feelings with a little historical memory. This is, above all, a human story, a story of peasants living their lives as best they can, fearful of their landowner and his foreman, fearful of their Lord. Or rather I should say it is a beautiful portrait of many stories intermingling, which is, really, the true story of life any where in the world: the old woman washing sheets down by the riverside; the young man courting his girl; sacrificing a pig or healing a sick cow; an itinerant peddlar; giving birth at home; planting tomatoes; home-cures with leaves and worms; high mass; the wedding; parentless children in a convent; - isolated scenes, but interwoven in sequences to give the idea of various scenes occurring at the same time, through which is threaded the main `story' of the small boy and his clogs to wear to school. An ethereal other-worldliness unfolds slowly, almost as if from photo to photo in a family album, around the half-ruined farm-yards and barns and cattle-folds, and life itself goes by, unfolds, at that timeless pace of yesteryear. Carefully photographed around Bergamo, indeed many scenes remind you of Renato Castellani's mini series `Verdi' (1982), and accompanied by pieces of Bach played by Fernando Germani, though I also recognised pieces of Mozart on the piano and Italian popular songs on an old gramophone, this film seems to seek keeping some of the past for posterity. With great success, it would seem: though I cannot ascertain to this in Italy, I can assure you that people here in Spain react as though seeing part of their own past history in the villages........ and some of the scenes appear to be almost replicas from `Requiem por un Campesino Español' (Ramón J. Sender) or even Melquiades the gypsy in Macondo from `Cien Años de Soledad', that timeless, magnificent classic by Gabriel García Márquez. `L'Albero degli Zoccoli' is a magnificent documentary, a beautiful portrait lovingly painted, through the joys and pains of its people, played by amateur actors, full of real human feelings, not forced superficiality. If you like this film I can recommend you also try `Las Ratas' (1998/II) or `Tasio' (1984), which though Spanish have certain parallels in being films set in rural landscapes and with a similar unfolding of scenes with very little story-line. Ermanno Olmi directed, wrote photographed and edited this great little masterpiece: a treasure.