The strengths and weakneses of La Terra Trema

Visconti's 1948 La Terra Trema feels very dated but still has its intriguing narrative power and is worth watching, despite its length (2+ hours) and poor image quality, grainy and jumpy b/w (the CD we were watching stopped dead in final minutes, but by then we had the picture): story of a family of fishermen in Sicily that, led by brother Ntoni, who'd seen a bit of the world or at least of Italy during Army service, refuses to sell their catch on the cheap to the local fish merchants, gets a loan and buys their own boat, and bucks the system - with the hope of inspiring all the other fishermen in the village to join them and get a fair price for their catch. Everything goes wrong, however, and the family ends up ostracized and impoverished. It's a long melodrama, with a clear and vibrant leftist message that, unfortunately, Visconti hammers home with all the subtlety of a blow to the forehead, Again and again the characters - all played by actual fishermen and workers from the small village - utter their thoughts in set pieces with a kind of charming awkwardness. Godard later picked up this technique for his later, didactic films. The film is worth watching, though, for its documentary account of the impoverished lives in postwar rural Italy: we really see every aspect of the lives of the fishermen and their families, from the crowded housing conditions, the dire poverty - clothes and caps rent with rips and holes and only rarely a pair of shoes - the constant battle against the cold, the wet, and the dangerous sea. Visconti brings us right into the lives of his characters; their lack of professional polish becomes the great strength of the film - we know that these are real people, whose struggle will go on long after the film is completed. If only it were shorter and more compact - Visconti should have trusted his audience more, just as he trusted his cast and crew.