Tre Fratelli (aka Three Brothers) (1981)

When their mother passes away, three brothers return to the family country home in Southern Italy to console their father (Charles Vanel) and bury their mother. Each of the brothers have found a different calling in life: a judge (Philippe Noiret), a social worker (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) working with juvenile delinquents and a factory worker (Michele Placido) involved in a labor dispute. Directed by Francesco Rosi (HANDS OVER THE CITY), on the surface the film may seem like an intimate look at the dynamics of a country family split by an encroaching urban lifestyle and it is that, too. But it's a really a political film as all three brothers are part of a changing political landscape in modern Italy. Noiret's judge must deal with a domestic terrorism that respects no life if it can't further its cause, Mezzogiorno's religious social worker must deal with an apathetic society which turns its back on its children and Placido is torn between justice for the working man and to what lengths does one go to to achieve that justice. Rosi balances everything beautifully as he's ably assisted by Pasqualino De Santis' (DEATH IN VENICE) carefully crafted cinematography and a rich but subtle underscore by Piero Piccioni. With Andrea Ferreol and Simonetta Stefanelli (THE GODFATHER).