Watch The Night of the Shooting Stars For Free

Sorry, this movie sucks

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely Brilliant!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The Night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is the night when dreams come true in Italian folklore. In 1944, a group of Italians flee their town after hearing rumors that the Nazis plan to blow it up and that the Americans are about to arrive to liberate them.Pauline Kael wrote, "The Night of the Shooting Stars is so good it's thrilling. This new film encompasses a vision of the world. Comedy, tragedy, vaudeville, melodrama - they're all here, and inseparable...In its feeling and completeness, Shooting Stars may be close to the rank of Jean Renoir's bafflingly beautiful Grand Illusion...unreality doesn't seem divorced from experience (as it does with Fellini) - it's experience made more intense...For the Tavianis, as for Cecilia, the search for the American liberators is the time of their lives. For an American audience, the film stirs warm but tormenting memories of a time when we were beloved and were a hopeful people." I wouldn't heap on quite as much praise as Kael, but there are some memorable moments -- most notably the spear scene! I appreciate the concept of a fantasy film set during war, especially from the point of view of Italy, which was really in a unique position as far as their government goes. Their leader was a bad guy, but not generally considered on the same level as Hitler or Tojo. The use of fantasy elements in war is not new (it seems to be a way to show how children deal with trauma) but it is done a little differently here, maybe a bit darker and less comic.

Rapturous. A movie full of risks, yet steered with a completely confident hand. A small town in 1944 Italy is caught in the last stages of World War II; it is rumored that the American army is approaching to liberate them, and the Fascists holding the town have tightened their grip in response, mining all of the houses and ordering the populace to take shelter in the church. While most of the town complies, a few brave souls decide to venture out into the woods at night to try to locate the Americans themselves. What happens to them on the journey is shot through with horror and suffering, yet it is also as fantastical as "A Midsummer Night's Dream"--the townspeople have been through so much that life itself seems unimaginably absurd. And although the war has taken almost everything from them, it has also smashed class barriers and social restraints. Now at last (for example) the elderly Galvano can admit his love for the rich woman he could never think of approaching in peacetime.Few films give us so many treasures; the heavenly vision granted to a young woman killed by soldiers in the instant before she dies; the improvised Communion in the village church, with the congregants dividing their own bread among them; the six-year-old narrator Cecilia (who, in a framing device, is telling the story in flashback as a young mother to her child at bedtime) finding a watermelon in the forest and smashing it with her bottom; a horrifying 15-year-old fascist who tortures and kills his victims in order to make his father proud; Cecilia tumbling onto a basket of eggs and, having been punished by her mother, spitefully smashing the two eggs that survived the fall; a teenage girl in the woods at night, hearing the distant blasts as her home is destroyed and remembering the first time she stripped in front of her bedroom mirror as she tosses away her housekey; the climactic series of one-on-one and two-on-two skirmishes in a wheatfield as the soon-to-be-defeated Fascists and the desperate townspeople--most of whom know each other, some of whom are lifelong friends--grapple to the death. It's slapstick black comedy, yet timed so well it just seems like the natural state of affairs in war--there's nothing arty or pretentious about it.

Great pictures and memorable details will convince all viewers, that this movie is a depiction of personal memories above anything else. But from a dramatic point of view I never felt anything during the film. I honestly didn't give a damn about the characters, since I never felt I got to know anything about them. They were nothing but desperate, hopeful villagers, full of emotions I did not quite understand apart from the obvious horrors of WW2 and the believable uncertainty of liberation from the Nazis and Fascists.But there was no psychological drama at all. No portrayal of single characters. The villagers are nothing but a social group all the time. A pregnant woman, a god-fearing child, a priest... But who ARE they really? They walk, run, die, walk, cry and walk again. But nothing much happens, and we don't know what's going on outside their small social community. Perhaps this isn't the point of the story, but I'd like to know it anyway.The acting is (in my humble opinion) very Italian. The theatrical approach, and the intense emotional expressions are predominant throughout the movie. I simply cannot relate to it, even though I tried my best (I bought the movie, so I would be a fool not to give it a try). But it did not work out for me.

The night of August 10th, when the feast of St. Lawrence is observed, is the time of the year when meteor showers can be observed in the sky. It has been a tradition in the western culture that wishing for a favor when watching the falling stars in the sky is a way to ask for love, riches and luck. The sky watchers can expect a spectacle like no other because of the way those distant lights are seen falling, fast and furious.The brothers Taviani, Paolo and Vittorio, have always come out with interesting films that involve simple people, usually connected to the land. In "La Notte di San Lorenzo", the Tavianis take the viewer to witness a group of people from Tuscany during the last days of WWII. The story is told by a 6 years old girl who was too young to realize the horrors around her in those final days of the conflict.In spite of the approaching American liberating army, there are still the horrible local Fascists, who knowing they were fighting a losing battle, terrorized their neighbors into submission. These misguided people, having mined most of the houses in the town, are feared by the local population. Some flee into the countryside, but some remain in the town, convinced that being in the big church will protect them against evil.Things go from bad to worse. We see different vignettes involving some of the people, as they cope with the situation. There is Galvano, who has loved Concetta in silence and is finally, as in a miracle, gets his wish granted in the way that she acknowledges that she has always love him, even after both have been married to different people. There's the young pregnant young bride, who is expecting and who gets married at the beginning of the film, only to be separated from her husband in an ironic twist.The Tavianis painted a huge canvas in which they situated the action. Tuscany in the summer is a lovely place to be, but one can't even comprehend that it was also the scene for the tragedy lived in Italy in those tragic years. The music by Nicola Piovani is effective in the background. Franco DiGiacomo's photography does wonders to make the film a great experience. The large cast does an excellent job for the Tavianis, who are ultimately, the ones to thank for their courage in presenting us this lyrical movie of beauty and death.