Sicilia!
Something as simple as a herring roasting on a hearth, or a meal of bread, wine, and winter melon, takes on the humble aura of a Caravaggio painting in this masterful film from legendary filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet. Sicilia! is a tragicomedy involving an orange peddler, an Italian recently returned from America, two “stinky” police officers, a guilt-stricken landowner, a traveling knife sharpener, and, perhaps most unforgettably, an indomitable peasant mother who reminisces about meals of snails and wild chicory, her husband’s philandering and cowardice, and her own father’s belief in an honest day’s labor, socialism, and St. Joseph.
72-Hour Streaming Rental: $12
How to Watch
“Straub-Huillet’s aesthetic abounds in anomalies. One finds comfort, albeit austere, in encountering patented elements of the filmmakers’ approach in Sicilia!”