KAOS
Directed by Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani
1984
Ms. Hen usually doesn’t enjoy watching extra long films,
mostly because she can’t stand to sit in front of the TV for that long. She
tends to stop paying attention when a film is more than two and a half hours
long. She didn’t know if she would like this film, KAOS, for that reason, but
she ended up adoring it.
The film is comprised of four tales and an epilogue which all take place during the turn of the last century in Sicily. There is also a
prologue at the beginning with men screaming at a crow because the bird is a male
and is sitting on eggs. The men told the bird that he is not a real man. One of
the men tells them to stop and puts a bell around the crow’s neck and it flies
away. It appears in the first tale, “The Other Son," and in between the other tales.
The tales are like fairy tales; they are not completely to
be believed. In “The Other Son,” a woman has someone write to her sons who have
left for America, but will not have anything to do with the son she has nearby
because he reminds her of his father, the bandit that raped her. This short
film has one of the most haunting scenes Ms. Hen has scene is a film: men are
rolling something that cannot be seen in a type of contest to see who can roll
the item the farthest, until it is revealed they are human heads.
Ms. Hen was reminded of when she was in elementary school, one of her teachers
like to say, “heads will roll.” She didn’t imagine it could be an actual
visual, she thought it was an expression.
In the tale, “Moonstruck,” a young married woman’s husband
becomes affected by the full moon and goes berserk. She tries to protect
herself by having her mother and cousin stay with her during the full moon, but
things don’t turn out the way she wishes. In “The Jar,” a rich landowner buys a
giant jar to hold olive oil, but it cracks mysteriously in the middle of the
night. He calls in a potter to help him piece it back together, but the potter
accidentally glues himself in the jar. The short film reminded Ms. Hen somewhat of the book THE PEARL by John Steinbeck, about a giant object that is
revered and puts everyone in awe, but in the end is the downfall of the owner.
In the tale, “Requiem,” farmers fight with landowners in
order to bury their dead in the cemetery. They go to great lengths to get what
they want. In the epilogue, “Conversations with Mother,” a writer goes back to
visit his childhood home and sees his mother who has passed away and talks with
her about the time her family took a trip on a boat and landed on an island of
pumice.
Ms. Hen liked this film because it is similar to watching a
series of dreams. The landscape is brown and bare and strange things happen at
every turn. Ms. Hen kept waiting for odd events and they materialized.
The characters are mostly peasants, with no education, but they all dream of a better life.
Surprisingly, there were no chickens seen in this film, even
though the film was set in a rural area. There is one mention of a chicken in
the tale, “The Other Son,” one man says the people who left for America sound
like hens and say, “Pui pui pui.” Almost every tale has dogs or cats in it,
which pleased Ms. Hen.
Ms. Hen was able to watch the three hours of this film and
not be bored and walk away. She thinks that she was able to watch it
because the different stories caught her attention and made it seem as if it
weren’t that long. She gives KAOS four and a half feathers up because she likes
to be reminded of dreams when she’s awake.
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