Change Your Image
ligoniel
Reviews
The Last Victory (2004)
A warm and wonderful community
I was channel surfing and came across this wonderful documentary. As another comment has noted; the degree to which the entire community pulls together and hopes as one that their time will come was absolutely heart-warming.
The documentary focuses around a horse race (which lasts a minute at most) that takes place every year, called the Palio di Siena. Every individual area, or contrada, is assigned a horse by lottery and hopes that their jockey will do them proud. The area of Civetta, that the documentary focuses on, has not won the Palio for a very long time and the overwhelming sense of shame they feel in the face of other contradas ritual mockery is palpable and almost stifling as the race day gets closer.
We see the young man - chest flooding with pride as he is allowed to care for the horse during its brief stay. We say the local self-appointed consigliere who is now too afraid to watch the race in public. We see the woman who launders and prepares the Palio's procession flags as she tells us the heart breaking story of her husbands abandonment and her only sons tragic death - but she does have the hope of a win this time. And we see the entire region, from cradle to dotage, have a great feast to lift spirits and collectively will the long awaited win and their chance to hold their heads above the crowds.
A most moving moment for me was when the old man showed the nails in the wall of a local square where the horses stable is kept. Each nail represents a past victory in the Palio. "Thirty-five", he says, "only one more and we can have six rows of six and even another row later maybe ?"
All in all this documentary gives us a glimpse at a community that seems genuinely warm and with a robust social fabric that is all to rare in the modern world and at a ritual which pits community against community in ways that means more than most outsiders could really understand. You could do much much worse than cast an eye over this little gem when you get a chance.