Le quattro volte (English: "The Four Times") is an Italian film made in 2010. It depicts the concept of metempsychosis taking place in the remote mountain town of Caulonia, in southern Italy.^[2][3]

The film comprises four phases, or 'turns', following Pythagoras.^[4] The turning of the phases occurs in Calabria where Pythagoras had his sect in Crotone. Pythagoras claimed he had lived four lives and this with his notion of metempsychosis is the structure of the film showing one phase and then turning into another phase. A famous anecdote is that Pythagoras heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog.^[5]

• The first turn is the human realm and is about an old goatherd who is quite sick and who takes medicine made from the dust from the church floor in water at night. This phase includes a long 8-minute take of the procession of the villagers culminating in the dog and truck episode so the goats occupy the village.
• The second turn is the animal realm and is a study of a young goat, from its birth onwards.
• The third turn is the plant realm and is a study of a fir tree. Eventually the tree is chopped down to be displayed in the town square and an evocation of cultural memory.
• The fourth turn shows the mineral realm as the tree is made into charcoal for the townspeople's fires. This phase, as charcoal is not a mineral in any modern definitions, points to a remembering of bio-cultural processes.

The fire and smoke point to carbon at the heart of the homes in the village delivered by the truck evoking human reason as the final understanding of the interaction of these turns and the true place of the human in the scheme of things. The smoke becomes dust, falling out from the chimneys at the end of the movie and down into the houses, street and back into the church. This is where the goatherd is seen trading milk for blessed dust for his nightly drinks, right at the beginning of the movie.

There is virtually no dialogue in the film. The film was written and directed by Michelangelo Frammartino^[6] and stars Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano and Artemio Vellone.^[7]

• Slow cinema