The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

Film: The Tree of Wooden Clogs

Director: Ermanno Olmi

Country: Italy

Released: September 1978

Runtime: 186 minutes

Genre: Historical Drama

Studio: Cinema Srl

Influenced: Victor Erice, Ken Loach, Giuseppe Tornatore, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Alice Rohrwacher

I find this film and Days of Heaven such interesting companion pieces, concerned as they are with the pre-industrial rhythms of human life, when people – particularly farmers and peasants – felt more connected with the land. Ermanno Olmi, known for his neorealist style of filmmaking, drew inspiration from his own childhood memories and experiences growing up in rural Italy in making the film. The Tree of Wooden Clogs (L'albero degli zoccoli) is set in the late 19th century in a rural Lombardy village and portrays the lives of four peasant families working on a large estate owned by a wealthy landlord. Olmi's intention was to capture the struggles and joys of everyday life with a documentary-like realism, emphasising the interaction of the characters with nature and the cyclical rhythms of agricultural work.

Each of the families lives in their own sharecropper's cottage on the estate, and the film explores themes of poverty and social injustice. The families – all played by non-professional actors in true neorealist style – work tirelessly on the land, and the opening scene introduces the characters and their daily routines, including Batistì, a young boy from one of the families who is reluctantly sent to school by his father despite their poverty. Later in the film a stolen sack of grain leads to an inquiry and exposes the complex dynamics between the peasants and the landlord, and the system of exploitation that was in place for the wealthy to profit from their labour. But Olmi was a quiet radical; his films sidestepped social outrage during a time when many of his filmmaking peers were left-wing activists waving flags on the front line. 

In many respects, The Tree of the Wooden Clogs is a swan song for the Eden-like harmony between man and nature. The film was shot on location in the Lombardy countryside, using natural light and seasonal changes to enhance the visual atmosphere, and we watch in awe and wonder as the characters go about their work in the fields, singing songs, killing animals, husking corn and washing their clothes in the river. Olmi limited the use of dialogue, allowing the characters' actions and the environment to be the primary conveyor of meaning, and when the actors do speak it's in the local Lombard dialect, adding to the film's sense of authenticity. 

A key moment in the film is when the families secretly plan to cut down a giant tree in the forest to make wooden clogs (zoccoli) for their children. This act of defiance against the landlord's authority symbolises their struggle for autonomy and self-sufficiency. Also, the death of Runk, an elderly man in one of the families, is a poignant moment that reflects the cyclical nature of life and the passage of time. The Tree of Wooden Clogs was originally made as a three-hour, three-part TV series, but went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978 and was Olmi’s international cinematic breakthrough. Few films manage to portray so perfectly the illusion of lost time recaptured on screen, with the film depicting so convincingly the misery and hard labour of agricultural life, as well as the simple joys and sheer beauty of living in step with nature.