Veteran experimental filmmakers Danielle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub have directed the unusual adaptation of Elio Vittorini's novel, Operai, Contadini. The film focuses on a group of laborers and farm hands who pool their resources to operate an alternative collective farm after World War II. A cast of 12 actors read from Vittorini's book for the duration of the film, either reciting from memory or using a clearly visible script.
The film was controversial among audiences for its showings at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight series. The group seeks to erase not only the distress created by the war but also the hardships of life and hunger, and to protect them from violence, misery, and fear.
In this post-war period, the characters build and invent a rapport between themselves, the sexes, generations, diverse social and geographical origins, and antagonistic political camps. They maintain a 'register', a kind of diary, as if they were entering the minutes of an inquiry or a trial.
Steve Grayson described the film as "my favorite Straub-Huillet films are Too Early, Too Late and Operai, Contadini (2001), both color landscape films with especially acute senses of place as well as of nature in all its harsh beauty." Jonathan Rosenbaum also praised the film, saying it is "one of my favorite Straub-Huillet films" and that he particularly enjoyed Too Early, Too Late and Operai, Contadini.
