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pinkolaestes
Registered User
(9/8/02 8:06:41 am)
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knowledge of this story in film? It has a shocking ending.
Thank you in advance for thinking about this with me, do you know what the name is of the film I am describing below?
I do not know the name, who made it, or what language it is in. (great, huh? ) What I do remember is my heart--- that the film broke it. I must find the name of this film to be able to cite it in my work, otherwise it will go without proper citation although with an endnote saying the equivalent of Si, como no.
I have been seeking this beautiful film for some time (over a year now). Most recently I have poured over several Movie Theme engines on the internet, but no dice. I asked at Jewish film festival three weeks ago...no go. Then, last week spoke to little old lady videophile who lives practically in a cave made of VHS boxes, so many films does she have....but, no go. Everyone thus far rolls their eyes and makes smacking noises as though recalling something very sweet, and says it sounds SO familiar, but every guess I have pursued has not yet been it.
Here are the facts, and I say at the beginning that I worry a little that I have perhaps mixed two films together, like one of the neophyte tellers in an acting class I taught who started out with Cinderella and wound up in Snow White somehow...and did not realize it, even at the end when Cinderella rose from her glass casket---(I am laughing in pleasure)
I saw the film about 10 years ago. It could also be in VHS. It could have been made in the 1980s, but likely not in the 90s I do not think. I believe it had subtitles, but not sure. It was set in the incredibly lush and beautiful farm or vinyard or back country of somewhere (I know, great, right?). It could have been Italy, Greece, Cypress, Spain, France, Germany....somewhere where there would be farm workers and dirt roads with big trees at their sides, and fields and maybe hills and farm trucks that carry people to the fields. The farmers or country people in the film may have been trying to keep their wine or their fields or their villages or all of the above safe from a marauding army. There may have been a pair of lovers in the film. The people could have been resisting Franco's fascists,or it could have been the Axis armies from Italy, Eastern Europe et al during WWII; it could have been Mussolini or Stalin. It could have been set in some civil war in Turkey or ?.
Somehow the group of people manage to survive and still keep their community. But at the end of the film, as they are celebrating and happy, and they all climb into the back of-- I think a big wooden slat sided truck-- and they are all going down the narrow dirt road standing in the back of the truck happy --and the camera angle is as though we are following their truck from behind so we see all of them so happy--and maybe they are even singing, or maybe the young lovers are looking at each other tenderly--I do not know for certain-- but all of a sudden the entire movie screen goes pure blinding white, and that is the end of the film.
I do not know if there is a sound at the end or not. All I remember is I felt I had been shot dead through the heart. I believe the intimation in the film was that the truck filled with the dear humans had hit a land mine.
If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know and I will research it faithfully,
cpe
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Kate
Unregistered User
(9/8/02 6:15:37 pm)
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A teeny tiny miniscule part, at least!
The ending you remember appears as the final shot of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," a gorgeous adaptation of the Kundera novel. Lovers, totalitarianism, a certain small triumph in the end, and, in the film, a lovers' glance in a truck and then blinding white--it's a heartbreaking novel and film. It was probably made in the late 1980s. I first saw it on video in 1992.
But I don't think this is the movie you are thinking of from the rest of your words, so either another film ends similarly, or if, as you say, you are mixing some up? I'll think about it and ask a relative who runs a film series at UCLA . . . he often gets things like this right off the bat.
I tried to answer your other question (the bookseller story) as well, but haven't turned anything definitive up myself. I believe it to be East European as well, if you haven't seen that post!
Best,
Kate B.
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pinkolaestes
Registered User
(9/8/02 9:31:47 pm)
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¡Mira!...
Dear kate, thank you for welcoming me, and for suggesting this. I think you are right, and I will now need 172 minutes to watch Lightness of Being again. After reading your suggestion, I just plowed through 53 reviews at Ama and finally found (near the very end of course--) this snippet to possibly validate, (you know those who comment on films try very hard not to give away the endings....(grin) " ...the final scene was crushing and then it was all clear. The simple beauty in "I've never been so happy"...then *BOOM*..." Even though not specific, it sounds like it could fit. That it is set in Prague during Russian invasion sounds right; one of the women lovers is from the country, and that sounds right. Though they have escaped to Zurich, they return to Prague and try to live "normally" as semi-mature/immature young people would, but in the midst of incredible abnormality. The undertone in my bones as memory was that the people in the film represented intentional and unintentionally brave souls.
Thank you...for reaching across
cpe
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InterstitialGirl
Registered User
(9/9/02 1:46:31 pm)
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Re: ¡Mira!...
Some of your description also reminds me of the Italian film "The Night of the Falling Stars."
e
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pinkolaestes
Registered User
(9/9/02 4:00:14 pm)
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very good suggestion also, falling stars story
taviani bros. film, 1982 very good suggestion; I have seen that film many eons ago, and tody found a copy finally since I have read your suggestion and will see. I am still looking for a readabkle synopsis of it; the prob with a lot of critical renderings is they tell about almost everything except the leitmotifs of the film...
You know its funny, in my mind --such as what is left of it aat the momentito-- I have been thinking for months that the title I am looking for is about something that falls at night, and keep thinking Night of the Broken Glass about Kristalnacht...but for certain that is not the film I seek right now to speak about in this book... although an exacting and direct heart film.
thank you for suggesting Falling Stars; I think it is a real possiibility... it is about a village trying to hold on and hold off invaders... "Italian villagers defy the fascist Black Shirts' orders to stay in their small village (which is mined with bombs),"
As soon as I am over one more deadline, and before the others, I will watch this...
I thank you
cc
cpe
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