Director: Luchino Visconti
Country: Italy
As in "Rocco and His Brothers", Visconti tells the despondent fate of a Sicilian family of fishermen unwilling to eat shit from the salesmen and other organizations that exploit the workers, paying them a fistful of coins instead of a real salary which could enable them of making a decent living, so they decide to put at risk their house and to buy a fishing boat in order to be independent and make real money. Sicily was insular and empoverished at the time, many people faced unemployment, a low-quality of life, injustice and labour exploitation which is a form of modern slavery, we can see all those aspects affecting the life of the Valastra family and his fellow citizens in the film.
Young and capable guys who want a revolution unlike their parents and grandparents who never complained about a thing and accepted life as it came, unfortunately they fail due to bad decisions and another burden: pride, however they claim it was bad luck instead of assuming the consequences of those wrong decisions.
The family has to face ignominy: out of work, broken and ejected from their own house by the bank, Cola leaves the town when a stranger from America appears, maybe he goes to New York City as many Italians did, Mara the little sister is bought by an official instead of accepting the love of Nicola, a hard-working construction worker who is in love with her, and finally Tony has to bend his knees in front of the bosses and get the job he used to have.
Visconti made a real crude pessimistic portrayal of the world, with some humorous moments and a voice over through the film narrating certain events which adds a depressive mood, techinically using static and long takes, minimalistic dialogues, natural light and real-life people instead of professional actors, "La Terra Trema" is pure neorealism that unfortunately we still living nowadays, the film is a criticism of the capitalism (the boss taking a big cut and leaving left overs for his employees) but also an analysis of going against it without the appropiate plan.
The Valastra family suffers from the social and economic enviroment in which they live in and which also it is bigger than their good intentions. As in Luis Buñuel "Los Olvidados", The Valastra family still exists nowadays in any part of the world both in developed countries and in developing ones, 100% guaranteed.
