Reflections on watching the film are complex. Usually I reject any film outright wherein a child or a woman pregnant with child may die. I am constructing a pretty picture of life, and these events (actual or not) do not promote a happy scenario. I am no Pollyana - rather I construct (when able) a positive, constructive, happy, cooperative world.
I wish to stay in the slim hope I found in this film (albeit Italian and so given to extreme swings between emotions and events). Despite the demise of unborn children, brotherhoods betrayed, fallen loves, and a butchered child as the father suffered witnessing, despite that the movie is hopeful.
Near the end, an aging couple who would never be allowed access to one another does comfort, hold and enjoy the loving ring of each other's arms. And despite all the brutality, villainy, and loss, at the end, a girl, nine years old, raises her chin to the sky to catch the rain on her tongue.I like to think that I am like her. Come what may, I will still want to taste the rain on my tongue (and also like her, I will recite things in my head when the world is too much with me - I will escape the ugliness in the cocoon of verse).
"The Night of the Shooting Stars" is not for the feint of heart and barely for the stalwart. I am glad I watched it. But I would not watch it again. I will, however, continue to catch rain and snowflakes on my tongue!
