Kaos

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's 1984 film consists of five episodes and an epilogue adapted from Luigi Pirandello's stories set in Sicily. The episodes involve a werewolf, a landowner, peasants, a ghost, and a mother who has to send her sons to America. What binds them is the island, poverty and belief; each story proceeds in a different register, some close to folk tale, others built on bitter realism. The Tavianis make the landscape part of the narration: stone, wind, dry earth and light determine what happens to the characters. The title comes both from the name of the place where Pirandello was born and from the meaning of the word itself. In the epilogue the writer himself enters the film. Who it's for: viewers who like literary adaptation and the poetic strain in Italian cinema. Who it's not for: anyone wanting to follow a single story; the film is made of separate episodes and runs close to three hours.