Frammartino)'s film "Four Times" or "Four Journeys of the Soul" is very special. There is no character dialogue, and the silent long-shot narrative is a kind of observation perspective that is like watching the world. It records and tries to narrate the shepherd, the sheep. , the link between fir trees and minerals. The Shepherds section is the fullest in a narrative sense. The old shepherd who lives alone takes her dog up to the mountains to graze day after day. Every morning, he milks the sheep, uses the goat milk to go to church to exchange for a charcoal "medicine", and drinks the charcoal "medicine" with water before going to sleep at night. One day, the "medicine" was accidentally lost. It was late at night when he found it, and there was no answer from the church. He lost his "life-saving straw" and his life soon came to an end. A long shot of the next 8 minutes is wonderful, showing the subtle and loving connection between the shepherd and the dog who gets along day and night. At this time in the past, the shepherd went out early, and the dog noticed something was wrong. It kept barking at the people participating in the religious ceremony, and was chased away and ran back, anxious like an ant on a hot pot, but no one was alert. In a hurry, it took away the stone under the tire to prevent the vehicle from sliding (this stone was picked up by the shepherd to press the oyster basin), the vehicle slipped and crashed into the door of the sheep pen, the sheep scattered, and broke into the shepherd's kitchen or bedroom. Waiting to be fed. It's a pity that the animals can't speak, and the shepherd rests forever. The performance of the dog in the long shot of more than 8 minutes is perfect, which is both touching and conveys the helpless anxiety to the audience. The wonderful thing about this part is the combination of recording and narration, the pure observation perspective, and the dramatic tension of what was discovered and presented during the shooting process. The remaining three parts are more bland records and lack of narrative function. This is the "twisting point" of the whole film, that is, the "narrative ambition", which tries to find a "existence" in recorded things, a This kind of "existence" or "existence" is a pre-determined conclusion from the beginning, and the result can only be nondescript and unnatural. A cut from a lost sheep to a tree, for example, is far-fetched. If the director is trying to find the connection between people, animals, plants and minerals, the "medicine" that the shepherds add water to drink, (my understanding) is not because it is the ashes of wood, but because this "panacea" comes from the church. So I would like to ask director Fran Martino why he made this work into a feature film instead of a documentary? Of course, a pre-determined conclusion before shooting cannot be called a documentary. Shooting is a discovery. The best example is Abbas Kiarostami's "Wu", which purely records five fragments of nature and life. There is no dialogue, no presupposition, and no control. It is a poetic natural breath and rhythm. "Walk to the end of the water, sit and watch the clouds rise", such works can make people forget
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