Family curse, called down upon a Tuscan peasant after his theft of a French army mule (and as an unexpected bonus a chest of gold coins) in the Napoleonic era, and hounding his descendants through the turn of the century, the Second World War, and the present day. The structure is that of the omnibus film -- a popular one in Italy over the years -- and the upshot of it is the frequent one of schematicism. But the Taviani brothers, whose Kaos also took the omnibus form, are masterly filmmakers, and it's a pleasure as always to watch them carve their own path through a scene, avoiding the paved and approved route, and fashioning a syntactically fresh and inventive narrative. Some of the actors appear as different people in different periods -- a rhetorical device not too difficult to digest -- and of these the strongest impression, almost an Alida Valli impression, almost an opera seria impression, is made by screen newcomer (stage veteran) Galatea Ranzi. With Claudio Bigagli, Michael Vartan, Chiara Caselli. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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