User reviews

There are many ways to portrait war, and the Tavianis choose a very circuitous one: By showing it through the eyes of a group of refugees - who, naturally, try to stay away from the fights as much as possible. Many of those refugees are real characters, with little stories of their own, so it's less a film about the actual WW2, but rather about how people react to war as a whole, how it can bring out the best (or worst) in a man and how it upsets everything you took for granted.

One of the nicest things about "La notte di San Lorenzo" is how there's always something lovely or funny to be found - comic or beautiful situations under the direst of circumstances, even if the laughter dies in your throat a few seconds later when violence cruelly rises again. This film celebrates life and humanity itself!

Italian films of the late forties and early fifties were usually shot in the same neorealistic style. They showed he horrors of WW2, but also showed the fierce determination of Italians to free themselves from fascist rule. By the late 1950s. Italian cinema had pivoted to screwball romantic comedies and surrealist style of direction like Fellini. Style began to overwhelm Italian cinema and neorealism was soon a memory. This film not only revives some of that old-fashioned Italian neorealism, but also marries it to modern surrealism, in a blend of comedy and horror that one seldom finds in cinema today. It is a film not to be missed by true lovers of, not only Italian cinema, but of all cinema. Don't miss it.

The fraternal filmmaking team of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani recall the closing days of World War II with mingled affection and pain, looking back at the fate of one small northern Italian village (ostensibly their own childhood home) set in the path of opposing armies. Combining their typically lyrical approach to storytelling with a remarkable feel for setting, the two directors follow a small group of villagers as they steal through enemy lines one night in an attempt to meet the advancing Allied troops. Seen through the rose-colored lens of memory, the Taviani brothers' episodic reminiscences take the horror (but not the hurt) out of battle, reducing all the bloodshed and rage to a poignant and distinctly recalled tragedy.

The Night of the Shooting Stars is the semi-autobiographical recollection by the Taviani Brothers of the night when a group of peasants in a small Tuscan village left their homes that had been mined by the Fascists to look for liberating American soldiers rumored to be on the outskirts. Set on the night of the Feast of St. Lawrence in the closing days of World War II, and enhanced by a haunting score by Nicola Piovani, the film is a tragi-comic glimpse of what the war was like to an impressionable child filtered through years of memory. It is essentially a series of vignettes combining fact, memory, and poetic imagination told in flashback by a mother recalling her days as a 6-year old girl named Cecilia caught in the middle of war.

The film focuses on the nature of a conflict in which life long friends from the same village are often engaged in the struggle on different sides. Especially vivid is a scene involving a battle in a wheat field between the villagers and home grown Fascists, and a heart wrenching confrontation between the partisans and a father with his 15-year old son. There are many other poignant moments as well: a young couple expecting a child, the village priest who is a collaborator, and an elderly couple rekindling a romance started when they were adolescents.

Night of the Shooting Stars pays homage to the tradition of neo-realism, but also includes surrealistic moments such as when the young girl sees the partisans as Greek warriors, while the Fascist who threatens her life falls dead, pierced by multiple spears. Though Night of the Shooting Stars suffers from overacting, its unique approach allows us to see war as a very personal experience with all of its sadness and cruelty. It was also gratifying to see Americans being held in high esteem, an experience we haven't enjoyed much of recently.

In the World War II, part of the citizens of the Italian Tuscan town of San Martino decide to leave their homes in the night of San Lorenzo, escaping from the Germans, and searching for the Americans. In the way, they fight against the Fascists, and most of them survive. The story is told by the character Cecilia, an unpleasant six years old girl at that time. Yesterday I watched this famous movie for the first time. I do not know whether was the high expectation I had, but I find it too personal and disappointing. The amateurish cast has not passed emotion to me. The story is very simple and too personal and has not engaged me. I would not like to be unfair, but I have not seen anything special in this small budget realistic movie. I usually do not read any comment of a film before writing mine, but I read the review of Howard Schumann (Vancouver, B.C) and I found it excellent. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): `A Noite de São Lourenço' (`The Night of San Lorenzo')

The night of August 10th, when the feast of St. Lawrence is observed, is the time of the year when meteor showers can be observed in the sky. It has been a tradition in the western culture that wishing for a favor when watching the falling stars in the sky is a way to ask for love, riches and luck. The sky watchers can expect a spectacle like no other because of the way those distant lights are seen falling, fast and furious.

The brothers Taviani, Paolo and Vittorio, have always come out with interesting films that involve simple people, usually connected to the land. In "La Notte di San Lorenzo", the Tavianis take the viewer to witness a group of people from Tuscany during the last days of WWII. The story is told by a 6 years old girl who was too young to realize the horrors around her in those final days of the conflict.

In spite of the approaching American liberating army, there are still the horrible local Fascists, who knowing they were fighting a losing battle, terrorized their neighbors into submission. These misguided people, having mined most of the houses in the town, are feared by the local population. Some flee into the countryside, but some remain in the town, convinced that being in the big church will protect them against evil.

Things go from bad to worse. We see different vignettes involving some of the people, as they cope with the situation. There is Galvano, who has loved Concetta in silence and is finally, as in a miracle, gets his wish granted in the way that she acknowledges that she has always love him, even after both have been married to different people. There's the young pregnant young bride, who is expecting and who gets married at the beginning of the film, only to be separated from her husband in an ironic twist.

The Tavianis painted a huge canvas in which they situated the action. Tuscany in the summer is a lovely place to be, but one can't even comprehend that it was also the scene for the tragedy lived in Italy in those tragic years. The music by Nicola Piovani is effective in the background. Franco DiGiacomo's photography does wonders to make the film a great experience. The large cast does an excellent job for the Tavianis, who are ultimately, the ones to thank for their courage in presenting us this lyrical movie of beauty and death.

"La notte di San Lorenzo" is from the heydays of the Taviani brothers (the first half of the 80s) but is in my eyes one of their weaker films from this period.

It is situated near the end of the Second World War. The Germans are desperate and a cornered cat makes weird jumps. The inhabitants of a small Italian village decide not to wait for these weird jumps and travel in the direction where they believe the American liberators are.

The journey becomes sort of an odyssey. Old stories are told and hidden secrets are revealed. I was especially touched by the story of the old widow and widower obliged to share a room and confessing their mutual love sixty years after the fact. Gabriel Carcia Marquez could have written it.

The story is told as a bedstory from a mother to her child. When the film ends the child turns out te have been sleeping from the very beginning. So the mother has in fact told the story to herself .... or to us.

This film is an eye-opening look at Italian life during WWII. It reminds me of the stories my grandfather tells me of his life in 1930s Florence during the war, "We didn't have money for anything, not even water. The rich had it all." This movie shows us the sparseness of their lives, and the things that they still hold dear. There are scenes in which it is almost hard to watch, we are torn apart by the brutality of the war, but we are entranced by the people who are living through it. We meet ruthless fascists, and caring catholic priests and every moment describes to us the terrifying truth, and the hope that lets one continue. I could not imagine a more realistic, and emotional epic on the subject.

I recently spent two weeks near San Miniato (home town of the directors and setting for the film), so part of this film's charm for me was to revisit the beautiful Tuscan countryside. But it is also a moving portrayal of a painful moment in Italian history, as the advancing Allies, the retreating Germans, the Fascist Blackshirts, the anti-Fascist partisans, and deserters from the Italian Army all converge on a small hilltop town in Tuscany (called "San Martino" in the film). Meanwhile, ordinary civilians just try to survive and keep their dignity. Some of the townspeople accept the Germans' offer of sanctuary with the bishop in the cathedral; others strike out across the countryside to find the Americans. Each group faces the unanticipated consequences of their choices. I have the feeling that many of the actors were non-professionals - entire families appear in the cast list - and the editing & special effects are also kept very simple. (There's a great deal of violence, but almost no cinematic "blood and gore.") But perhaps that's in keeping with the somewhat "naive" perspective that the film strives for - the story is told through the eyes of an eight-year old girl. For a book that focuses on the same region and period, I'd recommend Iris Origo's "War in Val d'Orcia."

My romance with Italian cinema dates from my childhood. Maybe it has a subliminal link with my mother's name from Calabria (Torchia), but I remember all those cinematic images and sounds as things very far yet familiar, and I identified with the passion, the laughter, and the cadence in the voices of all the characters I saw and heard on the screen.

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's film is from a later date, but it had the same resonance on me, and I remember leaving the movie house in tears. Furthermore, it dealt with peasants in a situation of conflict that reaches an extreme level of violence, leading to death: it takes place during World War II, as in Pasolini's "Salò", but instead of powerful, rich and decadent men murdering young prisoners, "La notte di San Lorenzo" unfolds in open spaces, dealing with people closer to nature, with simpler and perennial values, revealing love among the old, ideological struggle between families, and hope. It is a vivid mosaic of a community at war, when death, daydreams, destruction, poetry, hatred, and love combine in a tragic manner.

Rejecting Aristotelian linear strategy, the script (written by the Tavianis, the producer Giuliani G. De Negri and prestigious author Tonino Guerra) follows the structure of dreams. Framed by a scene in which an Italian mother tells her child events that occurred in her hometown during the night of St. Lorenzo, the film also deals with memory and poetry, as if the events were seen through the child's eyes. The succession of vignettes ranges from realistic to magical, all taking place in the countryside, among individuals who live in harmony to life essentials. They conform this wondrous work of art, full of powerful images, set to the intense and beautiful score by Nicola Piovani. It is still at the top among my favorite films of all times. This unsung masterpiece is a film not to be missed.

P. S. Another silly personal anecdote: after visiting the Cuban film school, fresh from winning the Academy Award for «La vita è bella», Piovani was leaving, I approached him and I said, "I want to thank you for something, señor Piovani...", he looked puzzled, and I added: "Thank you for «La notte di San Lorenzo»!" He looked at me more puzzled, smiled, nodded, and left. I was satisfied.

i don't agree with the last statement re the professionalism of the actors in this piece.

open city had non professionals in it also

i liked and enjoyed gal vino who was also in other taviani movies notably padre pa drone Italian actors look like people and not pretty faces that are rampant in American Hollywood productions. as an Italian living out side of Italy the nice scene is where gal vino finds that his childhood sweetheart again, Italy has always been to me magical still is. the taviani brotheres take stories and add wistful air to them remember another movie starring Marcello mastroiani who could still see the fireflies of his youth i think it was a sicilian movie i alwyas enjoy Italian films reminds me of where i want to be

For a different perspective of WWII, one should watch this essential, beautiful film. Of all the many pictures out there that deal with this tragedy, this is one I would consider necessary viewing. Amid the pain and tragedy of war, there are moments of poetry and beauty seen through a young child's eyes.

Great pictures and memorable details will convince all viewers, that this movie is a depiction of personal memories above anything else. But from a dramatic point of view I never felt anything during the film. I honestly didn't give a damn about the characters, since I never felt I got to know anything about them. They were nothing but desperate, hopeful villagers, full of emotions I did not quite understand apart from the obvious horrors of WW2 and the believable uncertainty of liberation from the Nazis and Fascists.

But there was no psychological drama at all. No portrayal of single characters. The villagers are nothing but a social group all the time. A pregnant woman, a god-fearing child, a priest... But who ARE they really? They walk, run, die, walk, cry and walk again. But nothing much happens, and we don't know what's going on outside their small social community. Perhaps this isn't the point of the story, but I'd like to know it anyway.

The acting is (in my humble opinion) very Italian. The theatrical approach, and the intense emotional expressions are predominant throughout the movie. I simply cannot relate to it, even though I tried my best (I bought the movie, so I would be a fool not to give it a try). But it did not work out for me.

If you want to know how Italians lived and felt in the Second World War, how they managed the terror, you have to watch this movie. Have you imagined your neighbors collaborating with the Nazi-Fascist army? Have you imagined can't trusting in your relatives? Have you imagined yourself being chased and having to run away on foot for kilometers? Well, most of us have never faced this situation (some of us did) and this movie is one portrait of what Nazism/Fascism was to Europe.

The Night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is the night when dreams come true in Italian folklore. In 1944, a group of Italians flee their town after hearing rumors that the Nazis plan to blow it up and that the Americans are about to arrive to liberate them.

Pauline Kael wrote, "The Night of the Shooting Stars is so good it's thrilling. This new film encompasses a vision of the world. Comedy, tragedy, vaudeville, melodrama - they're all here, and inseparable...In its feeling and completeness, Shooting Stars may be close to the rank of Jean Renoir's bafflingly beautiful Grand Illusion...unreality doesn't seem divorced from experience (as it does with Fellini) - it's experience made more intense...For the Tavianis, as for Cecilia, the search for the American liberators is the time of their lives. For an American audience, the film stirs warm but tormenting memories of a time when we were beloved and were a hopeful people." I wouldn't heap on quite as much praise as Kael, but there are some memorable moments -- most notably the spear scene! I appreciate the concept of a fantasy film set during war, especially from the point of view of Italy, which was really in a unique position as far as their government goes. Their leader was a bad guy, but not generally considered on the same level as Hitler or Tojo. The use of fantasy elements in war is not new (it seems to be a way to show how children deal with trauma) but it is done a little differently here, maybe a bit darker and less comic.

Set during the last year of the Second World War where village peasants flee from the nasty Germans. They attempt to make their way to the American Army who have just landed in for the rescue. The journey for these peasants become an ordeal but their lust for life allows them to survive. A film filled with human spirit during the chaos and destruction of humankind.

If you watch this movie you will note the importance of American fight for freedom on II World War. Italy was in a civil war, partigiani against fascists, cousins against cousins. The Taviani brothers bring on marvelous Toscany landscape all the pain of battles. The anatomy and cruelty of the war, the mourning face of a German soldier is the same as the enemy, how the civilian suffers under cross fire are revealed by takes as cutting knife. Can love survive or grow under war freedom restriction ? Was the church collaborating with fascist in some aspects ? Are open questions whose replies the directors try to give us. We can't avoid thinking about what is going on Iraque war, after all tears and stars are falling on San Lorenzo nights years by years since the end of II World War, the war never stopped in this crazy word.

This is only the second Taviani film I have watched so far, after "Kaos" (1984), so I'm far from an expert on their work, but I did find "Kaos" to be a lot better. "Night Of The Shooting Stars" does have some effective sequences (the killing of the Sicilian woman, the bombing of the church, the imaginary appearance of Achilles, etc.) but Taviani's choice to forego any central characters doesn't work; the movie fails to invite the viewer into the story and lacks the vision to truly engage us. Even Nicola Piovani's music score is not as memorable as his work for "Kaos". ** out of 4.

Directed by the talented Taviani brothers, this is a strong, warm and hopeful Italian war drama, set in the Tuscan countryside in 1944. The acting from the ensemble is fine and composer Nicola Piovani's main theme is terrific.

In August 1944, a group of people decide to leave their village in the Tuscan countryside to find the advancing American army. Unfortunately, their adventure will prove dangerous because both retiring Germans and bands of Fascists are still around and chasing everybody.

The story is told - more or less, because she does not witness many events - from the point of view of an annoying 6 yo child, who likes to listen to the Iliad poem narrated by an old man (hence the poster).

The best part of the movie lasts 30 seconds and not for nothing it is the one you see in the poster: a Fascist impaled by the spears of imaginary Greek warriors. This happens towards the end, during a bloody and tragic fight in a wheat field.

Could have been a great story but most actors are awful (the girl playing Mara being the top worse) and the dialogues sound like nothing real people would say. The lack of focus on one character (apart from the mean child) doesn't help, either. Finally, maybe it's just a technical issue, but it was difficult to understand the dialogue.

I saw the movie in the original version and I am Italian, yet I couldn't understand half of the conversations because the actors spoke too fast or shouted their lines.

The film is bookended by the grown-up child speaking to her own child during the night of shooting stars, but it's a useless device hence the title doesn't really tie with the plot.

Incohesive opening act set the tone for an inconsistent film. Pervasive sense of "weird" cast a shadow over every scene. Unsure how it earns the title of war film. No special performances, and visual style is nonexistent.