p(image-left). !/assets/55445/1167.jpg(Le Quattro Volte, the Four Times)! Le Quattro Volte is a poetic vision of the revolving cycles of life and nature and the unbroken traditions of a timeless place, the story of one soul that moves through four successive lives. An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. He is sick, and believes to find his medicine in the dust he collects on the church floor, which he drinks in his water every day. A new goat kid is born. We follow its first few tentative steps, its first games, until it gains strength and goes to pasture. Nearby, a majestic fir tree stirs in the mountain breeze and slowly changes through the seasons. The tree now lies on the ground. It has been reduced to its own skeleton, and is transformed into wood coal through the ancestral work of the local coal makers. Our sight gets lost in the ashes’ smoke. *A.O. Scott of _The New York Times_ writes:* "(Its) view of nature is among the most profound, expansive and unsettling I have ever encountered on film. There is virtually no dialogue, yet the film is far from silent: the rustling of trees, the sounds of agricultural labor, the barking of a dog and in particular the cries of goats supply a meaning that transcends words, while Mr. Frammartino's eye for both comedy and mystery produces compositions that are so strange and memorable that they seem to reinvent the very act of perception." "Official Trailer":https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpDSlbNj8bE Winner of the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European Film in Cannes Directors' Fortnight Tickets are $3-6. Order tickets online at the "DeBartolo Performing Arts Center":http://performingarts.nd.edu/calendar/view.aspx?id=2177 or by phone at 574.631.2800.
The introduction to the film can be seen below: