The opening scene of The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982) glows with a fairytale light. It’s a darkened bedroom overlooking a night sky in impossibly vivid, coloring book shades of blue. The “once upon a time” arrives at once: in a voice over a mother recounts her childhood story of how her Tuscan family and neighbors survived the end game of World War II.
The Night of the Shooting Stars, out now on DVD, was directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. The brothers emerged by the 1960s in thrall to Italian neo-realist cinema. With this film, they revisit the wartime settings that initially inspired the movement but with a sense of play lacking in their predecesors. The Night’s protagonist is a big-eyed six-year old who would become the mother at the story’s bookends. The account is from the perspective of a small child, unsure of whether to enjoy the upheaval of war or be afraid.
The long war flashback begins in a field outside the village of San Martin where a man emerges from a carefully concealed hiding hole. He is apparently hiding from the German occupiers and their fascist supporters, but since the child’s point of view prevails, explanations are lacking. Magic realism is in the air. It’s uncertain whether the roaring sound comes from distant shellfire or the wind in the orchard branches. Pears fall from the trees and roll across the ground like canon balls.
The Nazis have marked portions of San Martin for demolition; they have ordered the inhabitants to gather in the cathedral but many villagers fear they all will be killed. Those who slip out of San Marino at night to escape their fate find themselves on a confused circular journey, waiting for the U.S. army to liberate them. When a prankish landlord plays “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” loudly on his phonograph, the townsfolk are convinced that the Americans are arriving. One boy, squinting at the horizon, declares he sees them coming when, in reality, there is nothing to see.
Reality, however, is as uncertain in The Night of the Shooting Stars as in any fairytale. The climactic combat in a wheat field between confused partisans and fascists is staged as if children were fighting a cowboy and Indians game. There are many moments when the inner fantasy or delusions of one character or another fill the screen. The tone of this international prize-winner is exemplified by the six-year-old’s first encounter with a pair of friendly G.I.s She demands a present. Having nothing else to offer, one of them exhales into a condom, ties the end and presents it to her as a toy balloon.
