Films in Review

Saw F. Rosi’s #TheMomentofTruth. Seems a come-down after its 2 masterly predecessors …

… Then again, don’t we too frequently look for come-downs in the wake of masterpieces, by the masterful?

So let’s look a little more carefully, & respectfully. #TheMomentofTruth finds this incisive chronicler of Italian ideology in Spain …

… Doesn’t mean that he’s dabbling, but it could point to an investigation, conducted in a less familiar setting …

… Such a gathering of data might quite naturally, quite acceptably result in or lead to more tentative, partial conclusions.

#TheMomentofTruth does very productively link Catholic ritual, bullfighting, & the Agricultural. Rosi brings them together by tracing the money …

… and by a detailed account of the compromises, distractions & betrayals that it so often brings. That’s political/ideological, of course …

… but in the end the triumvirate of Church, Ring and Earth, all so ancient, intractable &, in their own way, fatal …

… alerts us to the possibility that this political director’s ideological preoccupations have here been melded, most compellingly, w’ more mythological concerns.