Bandits of Orgosolo (1961) User Reviews

Bandits of Orgosolo

[ZephyrFilms · 9/10 · 3 March 2006]

If you love films, film-making, Italy, Sardinia, or are a student of film, whether DP, editor, or director, you must see this film. There are many pearls here; one comes away from this experience with a new-found appreciation for what one man can accomplish with a single camera; making "his" movie his way. De Seta does it all-- WriterDirector, DP,

"Bandits of Orgosolo"exhibits one of the finest uses of natural lighting, actual moon light (sole source), captured on film-- as well as excellent use of local talent on location in Sardinia (non-actors).

The dubbing is the only fault of the picture; however, all of the other elements such as camera work, lighting, sound, editing, content, and story are genuinely engaging, but more than that-- leave you with a most sensual experience-- you almost smell the goats, and the shepherds!

I had the pleasure of meeting Vittorio De Seta, and his entourage of young filmmakers from Italy, in 2004 at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival where he was awarded a Distinguished Career award, and featured as a Special Guest, with introduction and interview by Martin Scorsese. The theatre was packed, not a sound could be heard during the screening of this riveting motion picture, and the Q&A following.

The Bandits of Orgosolo holds up well, a truly artistic film that captures a way of life, long gone. Its surreal and timeless quality makes this simple story even more engaging. This is one of the finest Black & White films you will ever see. Stunning cinematic details, with a magical all its own.

See it! Like the out of print book, "Notes on Cinematography" by Robert Bresson, no student of film should miss this.It's THAT GOOD.

stunning look at peasants' realities

[terryrhall · 9/10 · 24 August 2004]

beautiful opening scene - a chase scene through the woods - terrific black and white photography - down-to-earth story about the down-trodden. have not seen this movie since i projected it in berkeley in '69 or '70. would buy it in a heartbeat if it was on DVD. nobody believes there was an Italian director named de seta, not de sica! the actors are real people - not actors - and do a brilliant job of being "real" without acting to "seem real". the camera work shows off the unsung star of this film - the sardinian landscape in all of its stark beauty.i would absolutely recommend this film (and would love to see it again myself) and think it's a shame that work this good can sink into obscurity.

Omerta

[ricardojorgeramalho · 8/10 · 15 November 2023]

A portrait of misery and ignorance, in a Sardinia lost in its ancient traditions of isolation and distrust.

A shepherd finds himself unjustly involved in an escape of bandits, which resulted in the death of a police officer. His survival instinct pushes him to flee. He fears continental justice, the loss of his sheep, the prison that would prevent him from supporting his old mother and brother.

But it's a dead end. He manages to escape the police, but not the poverty and violence, which push him into a life as a fugitive, a criminal, condemned and persecuted by everyone.

A harsh and merciless vision of the isolation and ignorance, imposed by the law of silence, in the pastoral communities of Sardinia, filmed in the mountains in the center of the island, using only amateur actors, belonging to the local communities.

An excellent example of new cinema from the 1960s, at its best.

Sardinian shepherd banditry.

[ItalianGerry · 23 December 2001]

Too rarely seen today, Vittorio De Seta's BANDITS OF ORGOSOLO is a remarkable and relentless film set in a remote Sardinian village and surrounding areas and cast with local non-professional actors. The story is of a shepherd, Michele, who must flee the law after being unjustly accused of stealing sheep and murdering a "carabiniere." He won't go to the police and explain his innocence. The people here have no trust in the law or any real concept of legal justice. He would be afraid of losing his flock while awaiting a trial. And so, with his younger brother, he goes up to the rugged mountains where things go badly for him and the flock dies of thirst and exhaustion as he tries to lead them over the mountains to pasture land. He returns to his village where he witnesses his family's misery and is driven to solve his problems in the only way he can, by stealing another man's sheep at gunpoint and become what he has despised (much in the manner of Antonio in De Sica's BICYCLE THIEF---which has a similar plot outline.) "What have I done to you? I am a man like you. How will I live?", his victim cries.

The movie has all the makings of a quasi-documentary, in the tradition of Flaherty's MAN OF ARAN where men are struggling against the elemental forces of nature as much as with each other. (The film,in fact, won the revered Flaherty Award.) It is a brilliantly photographed film, with lyric and evocative visual poetry, beautifully realized, with few false notes. The harshness of the environment and the misery of the inhabitants of the area create a film that is austere, unrelenting, and utterly truthful. For commercial reasons the director chose not to retain the original dialectical dialog of the actors and instead substituted a standard-Italian idiom which Sardinian shepherds would never have spoken. Curiously, one can hear the original voices reverted to in those few moments when the hero and his brother use guttural sheep-calls, in which the timbre of the voices is different from that of the Italian dialog dubbed in by studio actors elsewhere. As might be expected this uncompromising movie failed abysmally at the box office.

In New York the film was withdrawn from the screen of the prestigious Paris Theatre after playing only a few days. The film has nevertheless achieved status and importance over the years for its unpolished epic quality. In this regard it resembles another Italian neo-realist film, Visconti's 1948 LA TERRA TREMA, about Sicilian fisherman. Michele is played in utterly somber demeanor by Michele Cossu. Peppeddu Cuccu imparts resilience to the role of the younger brother Peppeddu.

Harsh setting, soft drama.

[muddlyjames · 6/10 · 24 March 2002]

Equal parts documentary and drama, the film succeeds brilliantly at the former. We really do get a sense of how this harsh, flinty landscape shapes the people who live in it and how the customs and structures of modern (city) life would feel so foreign to them. The use of chiarscuro lighting in darker scenes, figures set amidst the cathedral lighting of the forest, and the imposing presence of Michele filmed looking upward as he is framed against harsh, white, rocky hillsides and the bottomless gray sky, give a sense of the inherent drama that lies in these people's day to day survival. Unfortunately the drama of the simple, predictable, and yet intrusive plot can't match that of the landscape and the film's pace is occasionally plodding (we literally spend a third of the film watching sheep being driven up and down hillsides). My review: a shrug. But worth a look if you want to learn something about this out-of-the-way corner of the world. 6/10.