When many directors make movies in rural settings, one invariably senses they’re depictions by an outsider, someone who imagines a way of life that ultimately remains beyond their grasp. Instead, t…
When many directors make movies in rural settings, one invariably senses they’re depictions by an outsider, someone who imagines a way of life that ultimately remains beyond their grasp. Instead, throughout’s career directing stories from the Sardinian countryside, the feeling is always that he’s a part of that world.
A flashback starts to fill in the story: Mario arrives with his German wife Grete from Berlin, just as they do every summer, though this time they want to stay for more than a few days. They’ve decided to take over the abandoned Saru farmhouse and turn it into a destination for European tourists wanting an “authentic” experience among Sardinian shepherds, but Costantino has not been consulted.
Mereu doesn’t traffic in nostalgia, and it would be simplistic to categorize “Assandira” as merely an outraged depiction of the death-rattle of traditional rural Sardinian culture. The breadth of his sadness goes much deeper, as if the goddess Gaia herself had been defiled and pimped out, and all that’s left are embers no one knows what to do with.
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