Institute History
Description
In Three Step Dancing, his assured first feature, Salvatore Mereu portrays changing yet timeless rural Italian culture—frankly, instinctually. The ethereal meets the ethnographic in this rumination on the director's Sardinian homeland, breathing life into each luminescent frame.
Seasons pace the film, as well as define each character's arc, as the camera shifts its focus through each one. In the springtime, four young boys communally experience their own private awakening by the sea. While riding in the back of a sand truck, they pass Michele, a stoic shepherd on the road with his flock, a character held over from another time. In the summertime, he carries cheese to a beachside resort, run by his friend Massimo. When he arrives, dashing pilotess Solveig has just landed and draws Michele out of his solitude for an intimate swim. In fall, it's unclear if a Carmelite nun has cursed her cousin's wedding by singing at the party. Solveig reappears in winter to put to bed an old man's earthly desires; instead, she takes him on a heavenly journey.
Inspired, nuanced performances are the jewel of Mereu's reflection on human bonds, which ebb and flow like the Mediterranean tide. You won't want to miss a step of this languid, richly energized, and passionate dance.