The Wonders
‘The lives of the villagers, though humble and uneventful, were interwoven with the steady rhythm of the seasons, and each depended upon the other in ways that were seldom noted, but always felt.’ — Thomas Hardy
The Wonders is the second film by Alice Rohrwacher. It stars her sister, Alba, as the mother of four girls and wife to a tyrannical beekeeper.
It’s a celebration of the quiet rhythms of rural life. And a comment on the way the present corrupts the past. These are themes the director would continue to explore in her next two films: Happy as Lazzaro and La Chimera. Interestingly, both these later works feature male protagonists who find themselves adrift, struggling to belong in a world they don’t understand. Whether through stubbornness, petulance or a saintliness that is out of sync with the degeneracy of modern life they are somehow off-kilter with the flow of things.
But The Wonders is an affirmation of the group; of the cultural, social and familial ties that bind us together. Because when these characters are alone they are almost vacant. It’s as if they can only be defined by their relationships with others… and with their environment.
