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Kaos DVD Review
Kaos DVD Credits:
Kaos Directed by:
Paolo Tavianni, Vittorio Tavianni
Kaos Written by:
Paolo Tavianni, Vittorio Tavianni
Kaos Cast:
Not available at this time
Kaos Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
0
Kaos DVD Release Date:
31st March 2008
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Kaos Synopsis:

Kaos DVD Review:

I have had the near pleasure of watching three films by the Taviani brothers this week. I say near pleasure because two of them are decent, well meaning films that fall short of being very good. This one, however, is excellent, surprising as it is neither a first nor last, nor even mid career film. Perhaps the Tavianis owe their success of this magnificent film to the author whose stories the film is base don. It is an assemblage of five stories by Luigi Pirandello, about Sicily.
It is perhaps wonderful because it, this 1982 film does what the other films by the Tavianis fail to do, even later ones like Fiorile. It creates a world that explore the complexities and wonders of the world they live in. It is not condensed, but a full three hour wonder, a full brimming film that captures from its opening sequence, which is stunning: six men torture a bird by throwing it’s eggs at it. One tells the rest to stop, and hangs a bell over the bird’s head at which pint, we are treated to a glorious bird’s eye view of the Sicilian landscape.
And from this comes the quote “therefore I am the son of chaos,” and it is an excellent quote to begin the film with, simply because of the shaping of Italian identity that seems so pertinent to the Taviani brothers. It becomes an enduring film showcasing strange and mystical occurrences, a brilliant magical realist collection, but that culminates in a segment that surpasses the first four.
As the film opens, the title sequences are distracting, as they illustrate what the stories will be, all five of them before one is even introduced. But they let you know what type of film you’re getting into , collection of tales, instead of weaving them together like an Altman film they separate, which is an interesting undertaking,
The first tale is called, The Other Son, in which a mother is embedded in her past when the residents of a town have three hours to spend together before their journey to America. She remembers the horrors of an evil man who ravaged countryside after being freed from prison. His assistant becomes the father of her child. A wonderfully rendered segment, in which that same actor plays the son as the father. She wants to write a letter to her son who has been gone for fourteen years, to that son to let him know about her coming journey. But there remains one she ignored because of his resemblance to the bandit. A great and wonderfully performed piece.
The second tale is Moonsickness, in which a newly-wed peasant girl discovers that her husband becomes insane every full moon. She arranges for a male friend to protect her, but they end up as lovers just as the moon emerges from behind a cloud. An emergence that is as poetic as it is tragic with all of its consequences.
The third tale is called, the Jar in which a rich landowner hires a master craftsman to repair a giant olive jar, he trapped inside.
The Fourth tale is entitled Requiem, a tale in which villagers band together in an attempt to force their landlord to let them bury their dead. A marvelous piece reflecting a solidarity that seems lacking in other parts of Italy as evidenced by the other stories.
In the Fifth Tale, The Crow of Mizaaro, The writer Luigi Pirandello talks with his aged mother about a story he always wanted to write, called the Crow of Mizarro, but it is a story he could never capture in words. This is perhaps the film’s most beautiful segment, and it is genius, a writer lamenting the inability of expressing an idea, an idea that frames the rest of the story brilliantly. It ends magnificently with yet another story within a story about his mother telling him about when her parents had to leave the persecution of the Bourbons in 1848 after the revolution. This is great cinema. She arrives on an isle to leave Italy in exile, and experiences a beauty in her misfortune, a wonderful place as she and all her friends are dressed in white as the white sand while the blue water cascades all over them and the sand. The water is pure and clear, as is the hope of continuing, an inspiration to the viewer as much as it is to the listening Pirandello.
All in all, a brilliant and beautiful film. The DVD has no extras, but it really needs none as it is complete as it is. It does come with an essay by a film historian that is magnificently telling of the cinema, however, and that supplants any possible extras the DVD could have.

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Kaos DVD review written by: Brian Reis

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