The title of Irish director Gar O’Rourke’s thoughtful film, “The Siege of Paradise,” about the impact of tourism in Cinque Terre, could apply to our idyllic Island during the insane summer season. Screening at the M.V. Film Center on Sept. 13, the documentary will resonate with those of us who have just come through the past few months.
Cinque Terre, made up of five small towns on the Italian Riviera, is renowned for its stunning vistas, leisure activities, and rich cultural heritage. There are no cars, and everyone arrives by boat. But since the 1990s, tourism has had a dramatic impact. The numbers are staggering. Each year, some 3.5 million tourists overwhelm the 4,000 to 4,500 locals, crowding every inch of the narrow streets, restaurants, and beaches.
The film opens on the first day of summer, with residents busying themselves in preparation for the onslaught. We hear an announcer’s voice on the radio urging folks to stay in bed for 5 more minutes, because he knows what’s coming: “Just for this moment, paradise is still silent, so this morning, go slowly … Let’s start summer as it should be, because nothing lasts forever.”
True to his word, soon the ships start coming, and coming … and coming. People pour off them in droves. Over the course of the 85-minute film, we follow several townspeople and two visitors, offering a kaleidoscopic perspective on what happens to this beautiful region, with its vineyards built into steep terraces that face out onto gorgeous sea vistas.
Carmelo is a beleaguered restaurant owner, running on fumes during the trying summer season. He serves authentic Northern Italian fare, as his mother had before him. With the hordes shuffling in and out for meals, and unreliable employees, he is ready to call it quits, hoping his daughter, Giorgia, will take up the reins. But she, at only 21, is hesitant to be shackled to the exhausting family business rather than exploring the larger world.
Guido, an older fisherman, plies his trade alone, telling us wearily that only seven or eight of his kind remain in the region. He is the most downcast of the group. “We’re all sold out to the devil. And the devil makes you lose … any kind of reason to live. So it destroys, it flattens. We have to find ourselves,” he says desolately.
Fabrizia, a mayor, juggles the often-conflicting realities of overwhelming tourism and its negative impact on residents, whose numbers are dwindling as they die off and their homes are rented to visitors rather than to remaining locals. Her words sound all too familiar: “The biggest challenge is to balance tourism and livability for residents. The risk today is devaluing our cultural identity and giving in to economic temptation.”
There is Bartolo, an elderly vintner and winemaker, whose family-owned cliffside vineyard in Vernazza dates back hundreds of years. He says that the great achievement of generations before was building the terraces where there was no soil. Bartolo’s deep connection to the land and love of his grapes seems to ground him, even though his wife is ailing. He is kind and philosophical with visitors, sharing the history of his vineyard and offering wise counsel.
O’Rourke includes the tourist perspective, too. Social influencer 25-year-old Grace tells us she’s a lifestyle content creator specializing in travel, food, and fashion for women ages 24 to 30. Traveling with her “bestie” Izabel, she is constantly “on” from one moment to the next, recording every second of her all-too-glamorous vacation for unseen adoring followers. Their conversations are cringeworthy at times, including when Grace considers which out-of-the-way location she can travel to before it becomes overrun, ignoring the irony that her plying her trade will draw unwanted attention to any hideaway. She adds, though, after having done everything possible to draw attention to her “fabulous” vacation in Cinque Terre, “I do think social influencers can be a bit disproportionately blamed.”
Bartolo is the one who seems to have a plan: “Tourism is an opportunity, and as such it must be considered. If we manage to have high-quality wine and if we collectively connect it with our centuries-old history of wine and of our area, we manage to attract tourists … The horror is those who get thrown … here [in Cinque Terre] for half an hour … They don’t even know where they are. We need to make tourists perceive our joy, our commitment — the satisfaction of doing these things because we are proud to be able to share our wine, our history with the world.”
If we take his words to heart, the question arises: Can we Vineyarders impact the behavior of those who visit our shores by having them perceive our joy and commitment to the Island we adore?
“The Siege of Paradise” screens on Sunday, Sept.13, at the M.V. Film Center. For more information and tickets, visit mvfilmsociety.com.
