SICILIA!

\"Sicilia!\" (Sicily) has repeatedly been admired for its lightness, liveliness and humor. However, like the Straubs' entire body of work, the film is also imbued with subversion and a clear, unsentimental attitude. A son engages his mother in a conversation, which turns into something of an \"inquisition\" about the father and the family, memories and politics. Simultaneously it deals with craftsmen, farmers, officials, knife-grinders and orange-sellers. The film introduces them all and they speak to us. Instinctively, one recalls the letter Stockhausen wrote to Straub 35 years earlier, in which he said: \"This balancing act between truth, concentration and aggravation (which engraves itself on one's memory) is the way to proceed.\"