Three Brothers

An old woman dies in a farmhouse in southern Italy. Her husband wires their three sons. Raffaele comes from Rome, a judge on a terrorism case who is under threat of assassination. Rocco comes from Naples, devout and rigid, working in a reformatory for boys. Nicola comes from Turin, a factory worker in the middle of the strikes. The three of them spend a few days in the same house. They do not talk, they argue, then they fall silent. All they still have in common is their father and a piece of land. Francesco Rosi directs; a hundred and thirteen minutes, with Philippe Noiret, Michele Placido and Vittorio Mezzogiorno. The story comes from Andrei Platonov's The Third Son. It was nominated for the foreign language film Oscar in 1982.