As evidenced in our best cinematography round-up, one of the year’s most beautiful movies is Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio, shot by Leviathan and The End cinematographer Mikhail Krichman. The Venice Silver Lion winner, selected by Italy as their Oscar entry, will now arrive this Christmas from Sideshow/Janue Films, who have released the first U.S. trailer and poster.

Here’s the synopsis: “1944. In Vermiglio, a mountain village high up in the Italian Alps, war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro, a deserted soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia, the eldest daughter of the teacher, are instantly drawn to each other leading to an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from tragedy, the family will face its own..”

Lucia Ahrensdorf said in her review, “Vermiglio is set in the eponymous alpine village during the waning days of WWII. Maura Delpero’s film, gorgeously shot by Leviathan cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, is a slow-moving fable that unfolds as a novelistic series of pastoral tableaus. The short chapters evoke Balzacian poetic realism and recall the sensual textures of last year’s The Taste of Things. But unlike that film, which exuded autumnal warmth and celebrated pleasure––therefore freedom––Vermiglio‘s stark, wintery beauty comes at the price of its characters’ desires. The painterly frames physically constrain subjects, especially women who suffer pointedly under the social restrictions of this time and place.”

See the trailer below.

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