Magnificat

MAGNIFICAT is a movie directed by Pupi Avati in 1993 and starring Luigi Diberti, Arnaldo Ninchi, Massimo Bellinzoni, Brizio Montinaro, Dalia Lahav, Consuelo Ferrara, Lorella Morlotti, Davide Celli, Marcello Cesena, Eleonora Alessandrelli, Massimo Sarchielli, Andrea Scorsoni. Under the ramparts of a medieval castle of the tenth century, by order of the lord of the place is run in public a fierce beheading, by Folco (Ninchi), a deadpan executioner, assisted by Baino (Bellinzoni), a young carefully selected from many as an apprentice executioner. Later, during a chilling exercise of apprenticeship, the young person must attend, horrified, to a second terrible execution, which touches this time in a young vagrant considered witch. After such a "prelude" the two walked towards the convent of the Visitation, the convent of the Magnificat in fact, overlooking quiet and isolated a distant valley. Towards the same goal are gone in different ways and for different reasons other pilgrims: Roza (Lahav) the favorite of a king, to ask for the grace to give birth to a male that will ensure the succession to the throne; Margherita naive girl "sold" as a novice at the Convent in exchange for a millstone; a libertine king, who wants to end his days in the monastery, and there he arrives escorted by a bevy of illegitimate children; an itinerant monk, passing from one monastery to record the deceased members of various communities, and dies "unregistered" and ignored by all; two spouses who are joined in marriage in the presence of representatives of the Church and the power, and under the eyes of a small crowd that spies on them, even in moments of greatest intimacy. All arrives to that Convent as an obscure search, and whose moments are marked by the celebrations that take place during the days of Holy Week. At the end some sign of life and liberation is perceived only by the young Margherita, the forced novice who dreams freedom. To describe the dark era of the Middle Ages, between the sacred and the profane, Riz Ortolani has composed a fascinating score of ancient flavor and by abstract sounds even given from the sound of water and the breath of the wind mixed with the tolling of the bell, various types of percussion, strings instruments and ghostly choral voices. This CD lasting 46:41 was made using the stereo master tapes of the original recording session.