The patient revelations of Gianfranco Rosi

MUBI’s presentation of Notturno segues into a short conversation, a welcome addition to their recent exclusive releases. On a split screen, Alejandro González Iñárritu starts to ask the director, Gianfranco Rosi, a question along the lines of “What was your vision?” Three minutes later, he’s still asking it. A still from 'Sacro GRA' Rosi’s next film, Fire At Sea, was also shot in Italy—on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa. But Rosi isn’t pushing us to feel derision for the relatively privileged: Rather, he regards the precocious Samuele with the same interest as the young refugee who looks straight down the lens of the camera, like the horse in Notturno. There are moving scenes with elderly people: the grieving mothers in Notturno, the talkative old man and his patient daughter glimpsed from the window in Sacro GRA, the kindly grandmother in Fire At Sea.