We saw this movie in our High School Italian class and it was deeply
disturbing. We are now scarred for life, little boys getting involved
with chickens is hardly an accurate portrayal of Italians. I empathize
with the person who this story was based on but I don't think it is a
movie to show your students.
It's a tough film, but sad to say it is an accurate (and beautifully rendered) portrayal of Gavino Ledda's childhood, which was characteristic of generations of Sardinian childhood. Grow up; if you're scarred by watching it, what do you think it would be like living it? Be grateful you have had the sort of childhood that has allowed you to have such tender sensibilities. The vast majority of the world's children haven't.
sharereading all the posts here is really funny...most of them are so stupid i can't even imagine...this is one of them...this was a disturbing movie, you say... real portrayal of a young writer-to-be, how he dealt with lonelyness in the mountains...this is becoming a pattern here on imdb...all the movies, that are based or real stories are disturbing, awful etc...whilst movies full of fighting, shooting (let's say x-men), murders, blood (the saw) are not as half as disturbing as this one...that's sad...and because i'm an european, this is my prospective on americans...got the pattern?
sharedude, making love with farm animals is disturbing whatever continent you're from.
shareThe movies you're talking about (X-Men, Saw) are films that are universally understood to be absolute fiction. It's not real, it's a story. The story of Little Red Riding Hood is fiction, but if for some reason we were to be told that it was true, you can't say that you wouldn't find it disturbing, and you certainly wouldn't be reading it to your children. There is a fundamental difference in the ways that people view true stories and ones that are made-up. Got the logic?
shareYoure 100%%right.
shareYou're lucky to have had a teacher that would expose you to the work of the Taviani Brothers. Perhaps one day, if you care at all, you will realize the great significance of this film to both social issues as well as it's incredible cinematic significance, and homage to all cinema.
shareI remember seeing the "chicken scene" ages ago, without ever knowing what film (or context) it's from. Yet I know I found the most disturbing of this scene the fact that the boys had (almost) no other choice, being deprived from any normal human contact.
And so recognizable when one's main need is escaping it's familiar bonds…
Don't let the chicken's come between you and a wonderful film, an 8/10!
No other choice than to have sex with chickens??? I think ANY group sexual activity in young children is pretty disturbing. Boys that age shouldn't be having sex with anything, let alone animals. You said they had to do it because they were deprived of normal human contact...but there were, what, 4 of them there? They could have been talking, playing, fighting, any of those would be perfectly normal activities. I don't care how much renown the film might have, bestiality will never be a "wonderful" thing in my eyes.
shareI am a Sardinian, and have lived most of my youth in a town only 30 Km from Siligo.
Although things are extremely different nowadays, there still are remote areas where human-animal intercourses happen.
It is a fact. It exists, and for this reason I doubt that terms like 'wonderful' have much meaning.
A film that represents facts, that commits to express the truth, doesn't necessarily aim to be a 'wonderful' film, its poetical approach may be, but not its commitment in revealing true facts.
For this reason, 'They could have...' statement in this context is inappropriate. This is a statement useful when writing Disney movies, not when approaching subjects of this kind.
This is just my thought, of course.
I think that you don't get the point of this film.
shareJust something I recall hearing was, those acts w/livestock have been said to be the core of the AIDS virus we deal with today. Also that father type that demands you have a paying job or your not considered his son are still around today too.
shareSpootycracker is right. The film has a point, definitely.... But the point could be expressed without showing boys having sex with farm animals or even implying it. The same is true about any kind of graphic sexuality, gratuitous violence, and profanity. I'm no prude, but the very best films can deal even with sensitive or controversial subjects effectively without wallowing into such territory.
shareThis is the sort of garbage that Europeans think set them up above every other continent in the world, when it comes to film making. They make the crap, and only they can understand the story that their great film-makers are trying to convey.
Most countries make film to entertain, there does not have to be a statement about everything that is wrong with society. Going by the tone of European films, i am sure glad I have never lived there.
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"Most countries make film to entertain"
I bet you can't name most countries not to mention having seen films from them.
Mate, I have 3 TB of movies from all over the world on my external HD's
Which movie do you want to talk about.
How about entertaining subjects like female genital mutilation in Burkina Faso, religion making people turn down medicine in India, illegal adoption business in Argentina, prostitution in South-Korea, drug problems in Columbia, suicide in Iran, poverty in Cambodia, political violence in Indonesia... considering there's about 200 countries in the world there's a lot of fun subjects to discuss.
shareEvery country makes entertainment films and most people enjoy them, some a lot others a little. However, if you are really interested in and absorbed by films you cannot stop at films that entertain alone. The experience is unsatisfying. I watch films to learn truths about myself, others and relationships.
This film was much more than a study of what was 'wrong' in the Sardinia of Galvino's world.
Why problem make? When you no problem have, you don't want to make ...share
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Everyone in this thread is so pretentious it makes me not even want to see the movie now.
shareSome people in this thread are so hypersensitive that I do want to see the film now.
What has happened in this world, where a realistic portrayal of actual events is deemed less worthy of attention than so-called "reality" entertainment?