Le quattro volte

The film comprises four phases, or 'turns', following Pythagoras.[4] The turning of the phases occurs in Calabria where Pythagoras had his sect in Crotone. Pythagoras claimed he had lived four lives and this with his notion of metempsychosis is the structure of the film showing one phase and then turning into another phase. A famous anecdote is that Pythagoras heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog.[5]

• The first turn is the human realm and is about an old goatherd who is quite sick and who takes medicine made from the dust from the church floor in water at night. This phase includes a long 8-minute take of the procession of the villagers culminating in the dog and truck episode so the goats occupy the village.
• The second turn is the animal realm and is a study of a young goat, from its birth onwards.
• The third turn is the plant realm and is a study of a fir tree. Eventually the tree is chopped down to be displayed in the town square and an evocation of cultural memory.
• The fourth turn shows the mineral realm as the tree is made into charcoal for the townspeople's fires. This phase, as charcoal is not a mineral in any modern definitions, points to a remembering of bio-cultural processes.

The fire and smoke point to carbon at the heart of the homes in the village delivered by the truck evoking human reason as the final understanding of the interaction of these turns and the true place of the human in the scheme of things. The smoke becomes dust, falling out from the chimneys at the end of the movie and down into the houses, street and back into the church. This is where the goatherd is seen trading milk for blessed dust for his nightly drinks, right at the beginning of the movie.

There is virtually no dialogue in the film. The film was written and directed by Michelangelo Frammartino[6] and stars Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano and Artemio Vellone.[7]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 8.08/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system. The site's the consensus states "Birth, death, and transformation are examined in Le quattro volte, a profound and often funny meditation on the cycles of life on earth."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 16 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews."[9]

Jonathan Romney, writing in The Independent on Sunday, described Le quattro volte as "both magnificent and magnificently economical," remarking "I like to think that it's possible for cinema to make profound cosmological statements without having to go all Cecil B. DeMille." Romney finds the film "the freshest and the deepest film I've encountered in a while," and "one of those rare films that anyone could enjoy, whether or not they normally care for slow Italian art cinema."[3]

• Slow cinema

• Le quattro volte at IMDb
• Video interview with Frammartino at British Film Institute