THESE ENCOUNTERS OF THEIRS
A film by Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet
2005, 68 minutes
2005, 68 minutes
No. 118
Narrative
Narrative
Description
In the last feature-length collaboration between Straub and Huillet before Huillet's death in 2006, villagers from across the length of Italy — a peasant, a postmaster, a theater director, a mayor, a rope maker — gather in the Tuscan countryside to recite the five final scenes of Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò.
Published in 1947, just two years after the Holocaust and the Second World War and two years before Pavese’s suicide, the Dialogues offer a series of meditations on human destiny, both comical and tragic, between ancient Greek mythological figures. Desperate in their hunger for immortality, mortals are blind to the gift of being human — of their ability to experience joy and suffering; to feel a passing breeze or the touch of another body; to name, remember, and act.
Published in 1947, just two years after the Holocaust and the Second World War and two years before Pavese’s suicide, the Dialogues offer a series of meditations on human destiny, both comical and tragic, between ancient Greek mythological figures. Desperate in their hunger for immortality, mortals are blind to the gift of being human — of their ability to experience joy and suffering; to feel a passing breeze or the touch of another body; to name, remember, and act.
Reviews
"Standing on the outside looking in, I discern something quite meaningful in the visual/structural rigor of this adaptation." - Keith Uhlich, The House Next Door
"Sublime." - Cahiers du Cinéma
"Sublime." - Cahiers du Cinéma
