Vacation in Val Trebbia
Marco Bellocchio
Italy | 1980 | 50 min
Language : Italian
Subtitles : English, French
Following an argument with his wife Gisella, Marco Bellocchio turns his hand to acting in a summertime meander through his native Bobbio, shot through with wounded nostalgia. The director diverts himself in this film overflowing with love: a riverside film full of hot coffee, squirrel hunts and legionaries dreaming of emancipation.
We are entering the 1980s when Marco Bellocchio treats himself to a holiday film on his family estate in Bobbio, a town having become iconic along the course of his filmmaking, and around which he now roams with wounded tenderness. Following an argument with his wife Gisella Burinato, the director turns his hand to acting in a summertime meander made up of aperitifs, canoe excursions, and those fantasies that we allow ourselves to indulge in under the sun. Bellocchio is having fun: this is a film overflowing with love, that opens on a Jiminy Cricket stammering about forgetting his lines and closes on a crucified person in good health, erring on the riverbank. He operates a transfer from fictional matter to the reality of Bobbio, which lends texture to the many discussions of holidaymakers or locals staying to make the most of the summer, carefully rendered by a filmmaker who knows how to capture the group, listen to it and fade into the background for the benefit of conversational flow. Vacanze in Val Trebbia is a riverside film full of hot coffee, squirrel hunts and legionaries dreaming of emancipation.
Pierre Guidez
