It’s often bemoaned that commercialisation corrupts culture, making it a shadow of its former self. Yet these laments don’t always do justice to the suffering inflicted upon those coerced into doing so – or their struggle against it. But it is this struggle that Emanuele Crialese portrays in the award-winning Terraferma. Three generations of an island-dwelling family are struggling to make a living from fishing any longer. Frictions arise when half opt for a move into tourism. But their values are tested to the utmost when they rescue and shelter an illegal immigrant and her children.
The opening shots of fishing nets being hauled in containing more holidaymakers’ refuse than sardines (though no used condoms, sadly) depict tourism’s prodigal waste, but also the islanders’ need to commercialise. Yet the obstinacy with which fringe cultures tenaciously cling to their customs is personified by Ernesto (Mimmo Cuticchio), a Neptune-esque grandfather openly flaunting the rule of law for the ‘law of the sea’. This makes for an interesting criticism of centralised authority governing in areas which it doesn’t understand, reaching its crisis point when Filippo (Filippo Pucillo) is forced to beat off drowning illegal migrants – an unbearably humbling scene. Terraferma is not an intellectually strenuous film, but sometimes it’s simply better to be open and simple than to prevaricate.
Reviewed as part of the Italian Film Festival 2012 @ Filmhouse.