Perhaps appropriately for a film about the amble of rural life being harried by the pressures of modernity, the Italian feature film Trifole by director Gabriele Fabbro starts with an almost worryingly slow pace, telling the tale of Dalia (co-writer Ydalia Turk) a young Londoner with Italian roots who has been sent to check on her grandfather, Igor (Umberto Orsini), in a remote corner of Piedmont.
Igor is a recluse who has dropped out of contact while slowly succumbing to dementia. Dalia fears the worst, but discovers a spry widower living a satisfying life. He spends his days questing for white truffles in the woods that surround his cottage, aided by his pet dog, Birba (An animal that thoroughly hits it’s marks and generates some big laughs).
Initially, the film is a study of two very different people. Dalia, young, burnt out by the big city and glued miserably to her paltry smartphone signal, and Igor, old, dying, and perfectly happy, subsisting on a diet of baked eggs topped with truffle shavings (they do look delicious.) He is in no hurry to change his lifestyle and obsession with truffles, happily documenting his hobby in a Henry Jones-style grail notebook crammed with years of esoterica and ephemera, such as the location of lightning strikes.
Soon enough, we learn that Igor’s impoverished life of contentment has come at a price. His house is being repossessed, the mortgage payments having long been ignored, and he and Dalia have just days to find 40,000 euros. The rest of the film focuses on the pair attempting to find a truffle big enough to buy the house back at auction.
“the tale of Dalia, a young Londoner with Italian roots who has been sent to check on her grandfather in a remote corner of Piedmont”
At first blush, this film looks like it was made for The Blair Witch Project money, with a cast of just two people: a dog and Dalia’s mother (Margherita Buy), who is seen almost exclusively in video chats. But then the scope expands deliciously, opening the film up with a ton of unexpected scale and pace in the second and third acts as Dalia goes on the hunt.
There is a great deal to admire here. The cast is the equal of that truly delightful dog, and the story feels everywhere and nowhere all at once as it flips from Dalia to Igor, at first having little in common, but gradually, as things progress, Igor’s satisfaction with the pace of rural life starts to impress itself upon Dalia, mending her resolve and ambition.
This could be rote. “Another one?” was the immediate response when I mentioned I was watching a film about a truffle hunter. Yes, Nic Cage’s Pig has some of the same DNA, but this is definitely its own beast. It is also notable for it’s depiction of Piedmont. Igor’s house looks like an idyll, surrounded by vineyards, but when Dalia admires them, Igor explains bitterly that the land was until recently all woodland and that the army of pretty vines shrouded in mist is a ruinous intrusion by Italy’s shady agricultural industrial complex. It’s little details like this that elevate this feature, making you look deeper and longer at the story in play.
Yes, it is another truffle hunting movie, but it gives us a disarmingly lively story once it gets going. Turk as Dalia and Orsini as Igor are both excellent. As is the dog. And Piedmont. Well worth rooting out.
"…Well worth rooting out..."
