Terraferma Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Terraferma Blu-ray Movie Review

Searching for solid ground.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 23, 2014

The islands of the Mediterranean would seem to be idyllic refuges from an increasingly harried world. Blessed by fabulous weather for most of the months of the year, sequestered away from the world at large and many offering gorgeously historic villages and millennia of apparently unaltered tradition, these mounds of rock and sand are a tourist’s dream. And there’s the rub. Many of these islands depend upon the tourist trade for a lot of their commerce and economic viability, to the point that when the weather turns at least relatively south, the islanders have to fall back on time honored modes of income like fishing. It’s actually a rather hardscrabble life for most if not all of these people, especially those who call the more out of the way and less celebrated islands their home. In what may be one of the more unexpected formulations in the 2011 Italian film Terraferma, one of the bugaboos of the American sociopolitical scene—namely illegal immigration—threatens to upend an already fragile and fractious society on one of these tiny outcroppings in the Mediterranean. Those of us in the United States have almost become numbed to the ceaseless posturing by various politicians and pundits on the topic of immigration, and it may therefore be something of a surprise to find out that other places have similar concerns, if not quite the ubiquitous media presence of various people either championing or decrying various approaches to dealing with immigrants. While the United States tends to focus on illegal immigrants from southern climes like Mexico or even Cuba, for the residents of a tiny island in the Mediterranean (never named in the film, but evidently based on the island of Linosa), it’s actually African émigrés that pose a threat. With most island residents already struggling to put food on the table, the massive influx of basically unwanted foreigners put strains on the local populace and economy that creates part of the dynamic that propels Terraferma forward.

There’s a curious dialectic between indolence and good old fashioned hard work that runs through all of Terraferma. The film centers on a family whose life has been made for years (maybe generations) in the offshore fishing trade, but there are signs that times are changing. The paterfamilias is actually the grandfather named Ernesto (Mimmo Cuticchio) who, as the film begins, is commemorating the presumed drowning at sea of his son a year ago. His dead son’s wife Giuletta (Donatella Finocchiaro) and grandson Filippo (Filippo Pucillo), Giuletta’s son, are also in attendance. Filippo helps his grandfather out on the family boat, but it’s obvious his attention is directed elsewhere, especially when he receives a gift of a bright red scooter to tool around the island on.

In one of the early emotionally wrenching scenes in the film, Giuletta’s first removes pictures of happier times off the walls of her somewhat decrepit home and then begins peeling away the wallpaper, as if changing the décor would suddenly return her to a time when her husband was alive. What she’s actually up to is redecorating the home so that it can be rented out to tourists who are about to descend upon the island in troves. She wants to get Filippo off of the isolated outcropping of rock and pointed toward a life where he can actually accomplish something. Filippo seems spectacularly uninterested in that part of the plan, but he does help Giuletta wrangle a trio of mainland Italian students to rent their home for a few weeks over the summer. Giuletta and Filippo move out into the adjacent garage, where they’ve set up the bare necessities of being able to live day to day.

So far writer-director Emanuele Crialese’s film is a study in small moments. There’s a frankly lethargic feel to this opening act of the film (despite some temporary violence when some of Filippo’s supposed friends damage his scooter), an ambience of a lazy summer day spent lounging around in stifling heat, that nonetheless only barely masks a roiling emotional subtext. Crialese crafts a slightly misleading quiet opening here that is full of long glances but relatively little dialogue. The audience is left to infer years of accrued regret and (in Filippo’s case) lack of any real ambition.

The second act of the film is where emotions tend to start to spill out into the open. Ernesto and Filippo are out on the high seas one day when they come across a stranded bunch of Ethiopians who are on a little dinghy that looks like it’s about to sink. Ernesto calls the Coast Guard, which warns them to stay far away from the boat and to let the proper authorities come in and deal with the situation. That becomes impossible for Ernesto to agree to when a number of the refugees jump off their vessel and begin flailing around in the water. Ernesto and his crew pull several of them aboard the boat, knowing full well it’s a major violation of the law.

A young pregnant mother (Timnit T.) and her adolescent son (Rubel Tsegay Abraha) end up staying in the garage with Giuletta and Filippo, and things get even more dangerous when the mother quickly gives birth to a little girl. Suddenly Giuletta’s best laid plans for her errant son are in danger, but both Filippo and Ernesto are struggling to deal with what the right thing to do really is. There’s a kind of half baked subplot here that has Filippo haltingly romancing the female student who’s part of the trio renting his house, but the main focus here is on how the Italian family is going to come to terms with the Ethiopian family that is suddenly in their midst.

Terraferma is perhaps both a bit too obvious as well as a bit too understated for its own good. There’s certainly some simmering drama here, but the main characters are all so depressed in their own ways that emotions tend to be tamped down (there’s one terrifically moving scene between the Ethiopian mother and Giuletta that helps to ameliorate this issue, at least somewhat). The “bad guys” here, as personified by a bunch of martinet Italian cops, are almost cartoonish in their single minded efforts to rid the island of unwanted immigrants. The other kind of ironic thing about Terraferma is how relentlessly pretty it is. Crialese frames much of the film like a travelogue of the undeniable beauties his island offers; it just so happens that he also unwittingly shows the ugliness of humans in the same fell swoop.

Terraferma Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Terraferma is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. As alluded to above, despite the kind of troublesome subject matter at the core of the film, this is often one incredibly gorgeous looking piece. Director Emanuele Crialese and cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti capture the everyday life of the island with some spectacular imagery that includes things like beautifully painted stucco walls or the teal green sea lapping up against slate gray rock formations at the island's edge. Detail is often wonderful throughout the film, especially in the many close-ups (simply peruse the screenshots accompanying this review for several examples). There are a couple of niggling examples of crush in one or two nighttime scenes, but they're more than mitigated by the otherwise sharp, appealing presentation that the bulk of this high definition presentation offers.

Terraferma Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Terraferma's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has some excellent surround activity with regard to the evocative ambient environmental sounds of both the island and the fishing scenes set aboard the family boat. Much of the film is comprised of relatively low key dialogue scenes and the 5.1 track, while not overly immersive in these moments, offers completely clear reproduction. Fidelity is excellent and there are no issues of any kind to report on this track.

Terraferma Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of (1080p; 24:08) has some interesting "travelogue" like photography of the island where the film was shot, along with some amusing footage of the crew trying to "train" the locals as extras.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:42)

Terraferma Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Terraferma has been fêted by several film award organizations over the past couple of years, and it was Italy's entry for Best Foreign Language film a couple of years ago (it didn't make the final list of nominees). There's a lot to admire about this film, but it's strangely emotionally distant aside from one or two well done scenes. The film is absolutely scenic from start to finish, something that's weirdly at odds with the dramatic story being portrayed. Those who like understated drama with some unusual aspects may well want to check out this interesting if not completely successful film. Recommended.