The Meadow AKA Il prato (1979) (Il prato)

Giovanni, tomorrow you should go to San Gimignano.

It is better that you go.

First of all because you need change and have to recover.

Or because they asked me to sell the last two rooms of the house.

You could take a look at the land registry and municipality.

You could put this in the future in your law degree.

There is something else I consider appropriate:

You must leave this house.

If a son at age 20 still is living at home, it's...

somehow indecent.

For him and those around him.

Not that we do not love you.

But for me, going back to San Gimignano...

is difficult.

If I am in my Father's house...

I can't manage to reconcile the past with the present.

Now you say something.

It is difficult for me to be so sincere.

But why should I only do?

You are under 20 years but not different from me.

I am not a father who gives out orders and domands. I'm Sergio.

You feel like a boy? I feel like a child!

If these papers go dirty, I spit on my father's house.

And on the money.

Now I feel unfair to be shouting like this.

Tonight I have to work write down some ideas.

But if I shout like that, I'll lose my mind.

And I don't want to lose my mind!

Because I like my work, I like biology.

It's a fortune today, I know.

Even a privilege.

And I'm not going to lose it.

And believe me, it is not easy, not even for me.

Yet I would like to help you.

I know, Giovanni, sorry.

I'll go to San Gimignano.

Giovanni...

The papers!

Dad...

The money!

I know it's a high sacrifice.

You can stay in one of the rooms of the farmhouse.

You've never been there.

For me, the country is depressing, you know.

But you try to profit from the fresh air.

Try and recover!

Don't get ill, Giovanni!

Because I believe in being ready for anything...

there was a thought of you living to see.

I'll go and get my bag.

I go to work.

I am so glad I'm gone, Leonardo!

My distant friend, like this you've never grown as a human.

I did not want to leave

Now that I'm here I crossed upon unexpected desires.

But it's not enough for me to be the only one to know,

I thought of recording my words on tape and to send them to you,

But maybe, some things you can express only,

with an old forgotten tool like the written paper.

I'm so inexplicably close to the feeling of this existence,

that if a leaf falls, you're can think only of autumn being around the corner.

Similarly I'm forgetting the magistrate work which is waiting for me in Milan,

which you can imagine, I do not like.

Meanwhile, my artistic projects resurface, humiliated and secret.

I don't know if tomorrow, maybe without the sun, everything will seems different.

You know my insatiable character,

But this time I really hope that it is not so,

Do you know what I saw?

A fox in a field at the forest,

My discovery put me in center of interest of local farmers,

with whom the sale is defined,

It seems that the foxes have rabies,

and therefore dangerous,

The farmers have organize a hunt,

and I will be attending,

Good day! -Who discovered the fox? -He.

Good day, Franchini. - Nice to know you, Giovanni.

Lido. - Giovanni.

Badalassi. - Giovanni.

Caciagli. - Giovanni.

Marini. - Nice to know you, Giovanni.

And if I was wrong?

If instead of a fox, it was a rabbit?

We go to the path of Ganzotti. -In order.

We prefer to go down the slope.

Here is yet to be seen. Here neither.

After a year of my life,

if the fox appeared and if I catched it,

Two years of my life!

What was that? - A rabbit, it was just a rabbit!

It was a happy night, Leonardo!

I had killed the largest fox,

and with it, I dissed the others on the run.

I knew well that the sleepiness and much of the populist who despite all resists in me,

transfigured the faces of my very ordinary guests.

I also knew I had never studied music

Yet, when half asleep, I thought I had sensed

what it means to conduct an orchestra,

Today I know that that night, the hunt, my arrival to the country,

that my entire life so far was a waste of time,

a temporary waiting,

a preparation even, for my meeting with Eugenia,

All children are invited to

come with us to the abandoned house of Marzana.

There, our studio is set up,

where children are preparing the staging of a fairy tale.

The perfomance we have chosen is the "Pied Piper".

I see the rats have crawled out, they are here among us,

and we want to do something about it!

Anyone who wants to join us in the studio can come now.

Comes with us, follow us!

Come with us all of you! We'll go to the house of Marzana!

Come!

Not many followed us, eh? - About 15

So now what? - Let's make more!

At the house of Marzana some other children can join ours.

I think we are quite many. - We are ridiculously few.

But the village, we have shown that we are there.

I think... one should not make missionaries out of artists.

But they now know that we exist.

Hey, you! Who is the girl? Eugenia.

Look, she already shags with Enzo.

Here why I'm writing, Leonardo to talk about Eugenia,

She graduated in anthropology and loves her work,

You would love it too, because the only job to find is in the tax bureau in Florence,

7 hours work, 3 hours travel,

and after that, Eugenia seeks to do theater for children in the village,

Like an avenging angel that makes me both tender and angry at the same time,

How long can you pretend that you can live in two parts.

Quiet, children, you need have no fear!

Wait, you can't go out.

Go back inside. I know you're afraid, we all are.

But it rains too much.

Let's try together to find use for that oak which fell inside,

We'll improvise!

I'll tell you something that happened when I was a child.

I lived in one of the villages in the north that each summer was flooded.

Also that year the dams broke and our house was destroyed.

We had to go away for good.

While we took off in a boat, crying...

we came past a tree top, sticking out of the water.

A tree like this, which made us afraid.

Between the leaves on the branches,

there were children, women, men,

Cats, dogs, birds...

They shouted shouted to each other they embraced, fought each other. .

L.

So, if you want to cry, do it!

It's the best way to get rid of all fears inside.

Imagine you are sitting on the tree middle of the water.

What would you do in the situation?

You can cry cry sing, hit yourselves...

If you want, you can also be silent... or use instruments.

Let's start!

Help, I'm drowning! Mom! Mom!

Blub, blub, blub...

No, not so. We prefer to start together.

We'll do it at the next thunder.

What are you talking about?

It's our thing.

It's late, I'll go back to the village.

I'm also going Eugenia, bye!

Bye. - Bye.

Eugenia, I bring you tomorrow at six by motorbike to the station!

I believe in happiness.

I believe in happiness, because I've experienced it, it exists.

Have you got a cigarette? Yes.

Never mind, I have a lighter.

You know, the thing with the oak...

The story did not the end there.

When we reached solid ground we waited for a truck with all our things.

And we...

interested at all? Yes.

Yes.

We were many. I climbed up the furniture on top of the truck.

The truck drives away and brought us forever away from home.

People were crying.

Also, I looked from the top of the road before me, at wherever it took me.

And I felt happy.

Idiot!

Long did Eugenia and I speak, Leonardo.

Although I despise everything ridiculous

but there were told things I always had hidden from myself,

I remembered especially one morning a year ago,

I had seen an old Italian film

Remember in "Germany Year Zero"?

It's about a suicide,

To the suicide of a child in a destroyed Berlin,

But when I left the cinema I was happy

As Eugenia on her truck,

That morning I thought

that life is worth living, if man can communicate with others,

with the means of his choice.

And that my means, perhaps, was precisely that of the cinema,

I knew none of the spectators who had seen the film with me.

But one one the way out, one of them said "Holla!"

Apparently he was also taken as me.

I replied: "Holla!"

And departing from the place, I was happy.

Why do you tremble?