Rent The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

A totally absorbing film of everyday life in a small community - The Tree of Wooden Clogs review by KH

This is a wonderful film, slow, serious, sympathetic, funny, humane and question-raising. I watched it in two sessions because it is 3 hours long, but this was not a problem since it is not plot-based but community-life-based. The actors were non-professionals who were absorbed in their task and clearly understood what it must have been like to live in their grandparents' world. Perhaps not so different from their own, forty-odd years ago. 

  I particularly liked the warm relationships between fathers and children. Many scenes included lots of  taken-for-granted physical affection which is not normally shown enough on screen, and lots of practical work in which the children are taught about how to live in a very matter-of-fact but affectionate way. 

a masterpiece - The Tree of Wooden Clogs review by MG

This film is nearly 3 hours long and refuses to have any sort of narrative, so it is like watching life in real time... but what a life: peasants living together with an uncaring landlord through harsh cold winter in northern Italy.  We were transfixed by it and completely believed in the 'actors' (all local people - not trained actors at all), including young children who looked as if they had lived like that - run in their clogs, played around in the puddles in the courtyard, etc. - all their lives.  It is a haunting, beautiful and moving film. I would recommend this very highly indeed.