La Terra Trema

When thinking about the post-war Italian neorealists, the films Bicycle Thief and Open City come most ready to mind, but Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema ("The Earth Trembles") should be added to the list. Commissioned by the Communist Party, it's a docudrama about "man's exploitation of man"--specifically, the plight of fishermen on the coast of Sicily.

Using locals as the actors, the film is set in the fishing village of Aci Trezza. The dialogue is not in Italian--"Italian is not the language of the poor"--but in the local dialect. And it's a very angry film about how the old ways are immutable.

The story centers around the Valastros, a family that has sent men to the "bitter sea" to fish for generations. The father died at sea, but the grandfather and the sons all head out every night to cast their nets. The oldest brother, 'Ntoni, who has seen some of the world while in the army, is disgusted by the way the wholesalers don't offer a good price. He tries to organize protests, even going so far as to throwing the wholesalers' scales into the ocean.

He can't get agreement, though, as too many are set in their ways. He mortgages the family home to buy his own boat, to eliminate the middle man. But a storm damages the boat, and the family slowly falls apart, as no one will hire them, and the sisters in the family see their marriage prospects disappear.

This is a very bleak film, as the second half of the film chronicles the steady decline of the family's fortunes, without relief. The second-oldest brother leaves the country to become a smuggler, one sister is seduced by the local police sergeant, ruining her reputation, and the other sister realizes she can not marry the man she loves because she is too poor. But still, the film's message seems to be that with cooperation, things could be accomplished, and 'Ntoni only fails because he goes it alone. "It is just a matter of time, as the worm said to the stone, I'll bore a hole through you yet," is a proverb repeated throughout.

The use of actual locations and amateur actors, as with many Italian neorealist films, gives it an authenticity that can not be duplicated. Some of the acting is a little stiff, but it's more than compensated by the verisimilitude. The lifestyle of the villagers, which hadn't changed for decades (shoes seemed to be a luxury) is brought vividly to life.