Cristo si è fermato a Eboli by Carlo Levi

The nearest railroad station is at Eboli, roughly 140 kilometers (or 87 miles) away.

Water drop by qimono ( Pixabay License / Pixabay) The people are plagued by malaria and the town supports only two, ill-equipped and somewhat incompetent doctors, an alcoholic priest exiled here owing to pedophilic behavior, and a mayor who cajoles the townspeople into venerating Mussolini and a modern Italy that they neither understand nor desire.

Many citizens live in small dwellings carved out of a cave in the side of the hills. The main cathedral was destroyed by the weather and the impossibility of proper maintenance. They have a kind of moribund grandeur to them but seem to teeter eternally on the brink of collapse. The buildings are in a state of advanced decay.

The soil is unforgiving and near-barren there is little vegetation or even rocks to slow the erosion that follows the occasional heavy rains. There are few toilets (most inhabitants use chamber pots). The town is remote from the infrastructure of most of modern Italy. The film is based on Levi’s memoir of his stay (roughly a year and a half) in the town of Aliano (although both the memoir and the film substitute the town with the fictitious Gagliano) in the region then known as Lucania (now Basilicata) that occupies the “instep” of the Italian boot. Beyond Eboli, the land was arid and unsuitable for agriculture, so Aliano was effectively the end of the habitable world. The government believed Levi’s controversial views would fall on deaf ears, but as he spent time in the small pastoral community, the simple wisdom of the peasants came to have a profound impact on Levi, and his beliefs would also impact the people of Aliano.Christ Stopped at Eboli( Cristo si è fermato a Eboli) tracks the journey of painter Carlo Levi (Gian Maria Volonté), who has been made a confino that is, he has been consigned by the fascist administration of Benito Mussolini in 1935 to “internal exile”, banished from his hometown of Turino (a hotbed of anti-fascist activity) to a small village in the deep Southern part of Italy. All’inizio gli sembra di essere come sepolto vivo, poi lentamente, quasi impercettibilmente, comincia a interessarsi al luogo e ad amare la gente che ci vive.īased on an autobiographical novel by Carlo Levi, “Cristo Si È Fermato A Eboli” – “Christ Stopped At Eboli:, stars Gian Maria Volontè as Levi, a prominent anti-fascist author, artist and doctor who, during Mussolini’s regime was exiled to Aliano near Eboli, a tiny village in Southern Italian region of Puglia. CAST: Gian Maria Volontè, Lea Massari, Paolo Bonacelli, Alain Cuny, Irene Papas, Francois Simon, Rocco Sisto.ġ935, il medico pittore Carlo Levi, condannato al confino dalla dittatura fascista, arriva ad un paesino Aliano, vicino a Eboli, nelle desolate terre della Lucania.

Cristo si è fermato a Eboli by Carlo Levi