The Macaluso Sisters

Five sisters live on the top floor of a building in Palermo. There are no parents. They live off pigeons; they hire out the birds in the loft for ceremonies and celebrations. One summer day they all go to the sea. Something happens that day and four of them come back. After that the film jumps in time twice more: the sisters in middle age, then old. The same flat, the same furniture, the same roof, and fewer and fewer people. Emma Dante directs. It is an Italian production, adapted from the director's own stage play. The film played in the main competition of the Venice Film Festival in 2020. What the narrative builds is not grief but the impossibility of sharing it; each sister remembers that day differently and none forgives another. The jumps in time are given without explanation; the viewer has to work out who is who from the faces. The flat is the real character; the walls, the objects and the damage are shown in the same frames across all three periods. Some of the cast are not professionals and the dialect of Palermo is used heavily. The pigeons are a constant measure through the narrative; their care and their flight are placed between the scenes. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian art cinema and narratives that build time in layers. Who it is not for: little happens, the transitions are hard to follow, and the film explains nothing.