The Four Times

The Four Times (Le quattro volte, 2010) is an Italian drama you can watch online on iFILM. Almost no dialogue, no score. An old shepherd lives out his final days in a village clinging to the hills of Calabria, at Italy's far southern tip.

He drives his goats under skies the rest of the village abandoned generations ago. Sick now, he's convinced his cure is the dust he sweeps off the church floor and stirs into his water each night. When his thread runs out, the camera doesn't stop — it follows a newborn kid, then a towering fir, then the smoke of a charcoal kiln.

Director Michelangelo Frammartino builds the whole thing on an old Pythagorean notion: a single soul passing through four states — human, animal, vegetable, mineral. Hence the title. Shot like a documentary in the Calabrian backcountry with no professional actors and long, patient takes, it asks you to watch slowly and read its meaning without being told. Stream The Four Times (2010) online on iFILM.