SICILIA! & WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE? [DVD]

Something as simple as a herring roasting on a hearth, or a meal of bread, wine and winter melon, takes on the humble aura of a Caravaggio painting in this masterful film from legendary filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet. Sicilia! is a tragicomedy involving an orange peddler, an Italian recently returned from America, two “stinky” police officers, a guilt-stricken landowner, a traveling knife sharpener and, perhaps most unforgettably, an indomitable peasant mother who reminisces about meals of snails and wild chicory, her husband’s philandering and cowardice, and her own father’s belief in an honest day’s labor, socialism, and St. Joseph. 20th Anniversary Digital Restoration. (1999, 66 minutes)

PLUS

Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? , a film by Pedro Costa

Undaunted by a commission to make a film about mentors and aesthetic exemplars Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Pedro Costa (Vitalina Varela) recorded with great sensitivity and insight the exacting process by which the two re-edit their film Sicilia!, discussing and arguing over each cut and its effect. Incorporating comments about the influence of figures as diverse as Chaplin and Eisenstein, the ethical and aesthetic implications of film technique, and such matters as rhythm, sound mixing, and acting, the film becomes a tour de force, immersing us in the mysteries of cinema as practiced by some of its greatest creators. Costa calls the film both his first comedy and his first love story. Commissioned by Janine Bazin and André S. Labarthe for the Cinéastes de notre temps series. A New Digital Restoration. (2001, 107 minutes)

Sicilia! / 1999 / 66 minutes || Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? / 2001 / 107 minutes