''Sacro GRA'' (,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

for "Holy GRA") is a 2013 Italian

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed by Gianfranco Rosi. It won the

Golden Lion The Golden Lion () is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1970, a ...

at the

70th Venice International Film Festival The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival, was held from 28 August to 7 September 2013, at Venice Lido in Italy. Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci was the jury president for the main competition. He was previously the presiden ...

. It was the first documentary film to win the top Prize at the Venice film Festival.

Synopsis

The film depicts life along the

Grande Raccordo Anulare Autostrada A90 or Grande Raccordo Anulare () or GRA is a ring-shaped ''autostrada'' (Italian for "motorway") long in Italy located in the region of Lazio that encircles Rome. It is a part of the E80 European route. GRA is one of the most impo ...

, the ring-road highway that surrounds

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. Rosi spent over two years in filming, while the film editing requested eight months of work. According to the director, the film was inspired by

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, ; ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian novelist and short story writer. His best-known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosm ...

's novel '' Invisible Cities'' (1972), in which the explorer

Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...

is imagined describing to

Kublai Khan Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the ...

, the towns he visited throughout the Chinese Empire .

Reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Sacro GRA'' makes the most of its unusual focus, proving that a documentary about the history of a road can also be powerfully human."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the film a score of 64 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave it 3.5/4 stars, noting that it seems "scattered and incomplete at times" but also that the "movie lingers in the imagination." He praised the "beauty" of the cinematography and commented that much interpretation is left to the viewer. In contrast, Jay Weissberg of Variety argued that "the idea remains more absorbing than the final product" and suggested that it was ideal fodder for documentary film festivals.

References

External links

* * 2013 films 2013 documentary films Italian documentary films 2010s Italian-language films Golden Lion winners Films set in Rome Films shot in Rome Ring roads in Italy Documentary films about road transport Films directed by Gianfranco Rosi Transport in Rome 2010s Italian films {{2010s-documentary-film-stub