Impressioni siciliane

"Cines" n. 15 documentary.

The documentary opens with a pan shot on a lemon grove and a close up on the detail of a peach tree. The first part is about Taormina, the wonderful Sicilian town, its coast and historical centre on the top of a rock. The camera lingers on the gulf the town overlooks. The following image is one poised between past and present: a car, a cart drawn by a horse and some pedestrians simultaneously passing by. After another pan on the gulf, with prickly pears in the foreground, the camera turns to the sky and the sun peeping out of the clouds and setting over the sea. In the second part, I papiri della Fonte Ciane (The Papyri of Ciane Spring), a boat glides down a river among the papyri growing on the banks. The third part, Latomie siracusane (Syracusan Caves), opens on some foliage. Two nuns laugh while walking in beautiful natural surroundings. The camera pans on the rocks and gets into a cave where two men are working with a handloom. The fourth part, I templi di Agrigento (Agrigento's Temples), focuses on the Temple Valley. The columns, shot from the bottom upwards, make the viewer dizzy. In the dirt road along the temples, cars are whizzing beside horses, a woman is taking his goat to pasture and another is riding a donkey. The last part is centred on Palermo e la Conca d'Oro. We see the city from above, gradually dispersing into the countryside and its many villages. After an overview of the main monuments, churches and palaces, we are taken to Monreale, with its ageless atmosphere, its cloister surrounded by columns with the fountain in the middle. The last frames linger on the beach of the main city in Sicily.