Padre Padrone [1977] [DVD]

There's no shortage of grit and unpleasantness in Padre Padrone, the kind of film you really couldn't make today - violent child beatings, animals beaten, killed or worse on screen (I really wasn't expecting the montage of donkey and chicken molesting) and a distinct lack of any sentimentality. But the Taviani Brothers' film is still one of the best I've seen this year, turning what could easily have been an exercise in miserablism into a remarkable and occasionally anarchic but always imaginative piece of pure filmmaking. From its great opening, where the real Gavino hands the actor playing his father the stick he will use to beat him as a child, there's an intelligent audacity that manifests itself in a world where animals and even music have voices if you know how to listen: the battle of wills between Gavino and a goat played out in voice over, or the voice overs of the school children whose laughter at Gavino's fate turns to horror as they realize they are next are just two great examples. Some shots manage to be strangely beautiful in spite of their context or even, odd as it sounds, their visual quality - the tracking shot of leaving the village, the long take of the father hurrying home to kill his son. The film also has a superlative use of sound, creating a sense of place out of the sounds as much of the sights in Gavino's first night in the pasture.The two hours fly by, but burn themelves into your memory. It's just a shame that Fox Lorber's DVD is such poor quality.

This is how many people on the islands in Southern Europe were raised. It as the standard of the time. It was heart wrenching but an important film to watch especially for people who work or know children who are being abused. I understand that historical trauma is at the root of this type of behavior in any society. Wars such as Iraq and Afganistan are good example, the Rawandan genicide, North Korean death camps, Mexico drug cartels and corrupt police, the brutality how the US treats our southern nieghbors who wish to have a better life by crossing the borders and becoming undocumented immigrants instead of human beings are all good examples of how this try of brutality is passed on through the process of epigenetics.

I read the other reviews and found more out of this film than I did. One of the most disturbing aspects of this movie was the mother, and her evil laugh. That's not the way a mother acts. Its a wonder Gavino turned out half way decent at all. I would love to know if he ever got , had kids of his own, had any normalcy in his relationships. And I would love to know if his dad hit him in the head at the end of the movie. The camera stops, so we don't know.

Excellent!

I ordered this movie, along with many other Winners at Cannes. When I ordered the DVD, the description said that it was a Region 0 DVD, i.e., plays everywhere. Not true! It won't play on my DVD player. Now the same DVD is described as Region 2. Because I bought so many DVDs at once, I failed to try to watch the DVD within Amazon's 1 month return window (new to me, so Amazon won't accept the return. Lesson painfully learned: I won't buy more than 1 DVD at a time from Amazon so I make sure that I watch it and it works before the return period expires. I was able to watch the DVD on my computer. Definitely not worth watching on a small screen, sitting at a desk. True story about a peasant Italian boy determined to get an education despite his father's interference.

A piece of life to discover

A shepherd pulls his young son out of the first grade to start him on his career as a shepherd. He teaches him necessary survival skills for the job, but beats him for attempting to abandon his duties. The boy reaches his twenty-first year. The father sells almost everything and buys an olive grove which a frost destroys. The young shepherd and his peers plan to immigrate to Germany, but he is sent back while the others leave because his father didn't sign the correct forms and because he is illiterate. The young man gets a grammar school equivalency diploma and joins the army. He makes a friend who helps him to refine his intellect. He learns quickly and decides he wants to continue to University for linguistics. Returning home he is forced to work for his father during the day and study by night. He fails an exam and refuses to work anymore. The father and son have a fight, and the son has to leave. He gets his doctorate and writes an award-winning autobiography. He returns to his hometown to live. The theme of this film is the wisdom that allows an uneducated, young shepherd to gain an education, fame, and an independent, meaningful existence in the context of patriarchal oppression. This theme is enhanced by the use of the elements of film style. Editing shows us a sequence in which the face of a patron saint that the boys are carrying in procession turn into the face of Gavino's father. This shows the audience that, metaphorically, Gavino carries the weight of his father on his shoulders. We feel the heavy patriarchal oppression to which he and his peers are subjected. Action shows us Gavino turning the radio volume up when his father asks him to turn it off, and then humming Mozart's clarinet concerto when his father silences the radio by immersing it in water. The audience recognizes that Gavino is finally defying his patronizing father. This action also shows us the dimension of his mind, as it reveals that he is capable of understanding Mozart and of keeping beauty alive in his life. We fear retribution and are at the same time awed by and proud of Gavino's courage. Sound gives us many stream-of-consciousness sequences in which we hear the thoughts of Gavino and other characters. In one such sequence, we hear Gavino connecting the vocabulary he is memorizing to words that he already knows and to feelings he has known but could not name before. "...Languid, lurid, father, fatherly, patriarch, patronize," he says to himself. This allows the audience into Gavino's consciousness, so that we experience growth; we recognize that as he learns new vocabulary, he is also acquiring self-worth. This film story is culturally valuable because it shows that one man can acquire the wisdom to break the traditional cycle that many--perhaps centuries of--people had not. It is a story, therefore, that is greatly inspirational to anyone who has ever faced opposition to maturation, modernization or creativity. The use of detailed sounds and slow, simple camera movements force the audience's senses to follow Gavino's. When he is alone in the dark, we are alone in the dark. We see a close-up of a snake's poised, open jaw and fear it, just as he does. We hear the wind through the trees as Gavino's father trains him to recognize his location by it. Likewise, the many stream of consciousness scenes allow the audience into Gavino's mind. We also hear fragments of the thoughts of the schoolchildren, Gavino's father, the selfish townspeople at a funeral, and even the sheep Gavino milks. The use of such devices makes the audience take part not only in the physical pain and alienation that was part of a young shepherd's life, but also in the mental neglect and torture that followed. We feel abandoned, fed up, and triumphant as Gavino does. The most important aspect of this film, however, lies in the fact that while Gavino creates his own boundaries and frees himself from patriarchal slavery, he is still self-aware and doesn't turn his story into a fairy tale. He is not living in a mansion with a perfect wife and children at the film's end. Rather, the real Gavino is presented to the audience on the same lonely streets on which he began, looking content but imperfect. This story allows for the fact that there are still sad aspects to his life, and lingering effects to what he experienced. Likewise, none of his experience was sweetened: his life is presented as was, in a beautiful and moving way.

I love this true story movie but it is crazy and has some very disturbing scenes not for children at all. However, it was important to show as it was a true account.

Buon prodotto ottimo audio e buon video nonostante l'eta del film

A classic 1970s film by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani based on the autobiography of Gavino Ledda. Gavino was only 6 years old when his abusive father pulled him out of school and forced him to become a sheppard in the hills of Sardegna. There is no time in the film when a scene is not a clever and carefully controlled abstraction. A thought provoking film that is both captivating and disturbing, and with a strong urge to reach out, kick the screen and let the father have it. Padre Padrone (Widescreen)Padre Padrone (Widescreen)

Sorti il y a 40 ans, palme d'or à CANNES, cette chronique d'un petit garçon sarde envoyé par son père ( OMERO ANTONUTTI, acteur fétiche des TAVIANI, visible notamment dans LA NUIT DE SAN LORENZO) garder son maigre troupeau de moutons dans les montagnes et qui arrive à l'armée complètement illettré est remarquable. L'armée va lui permettre d'étancher sa soif d'instruction et lui permettra de vivre une vie normale. C'est avant tout un film hautement politique, militant, culturel, idéaliste et fidèle au livre. Pas de sous titres en français malheureusement ! C'est un chef d'oeuvre comme savait produire le cinéma italien à l'époque.

Ein Film, der mich bei Erstausstrahlung im Kino so bewegt hat, daß ich ihn kein zweites Mal ansehen wollte.PS: Dazu unbedingt irgendwann die literarische Grundlage (Gavino LEDDA) lesen.

This film was inspired by an Italian novel which relates the physical and psychological misery of a family and mainly of the young hero subjected to the violent domination ot the father and forced to give up school to become a shepherd in a very lonely and savage countryside ,with no human contact .The hero will rise and revolt under the oppression . A very strong , sometimes shocking film which denounces the evils caused by extreme poverty and analphabetism , directed by the talented Taviani brothers ,it won the Palme d 'or at the cannes Festival of 1977 and other prizes