I, too, don't understand how the OPr can say that "very little happens" in this movie.
As what other posters above have said, there's the scene of Red Shirts fighting the Royalist soldiers, the main character's nephew going into war first allying himself with the forces of Garibaldi's New Italy and then later going to the side of the monarchial Francis II, then there's the love triangle of Concetta, Tancredi, Angelica.
And I saw this film in Italian, and only online - YouTube. I don't even understand the language, except for a few isolated words, but I've read some about the Risorgimento or Unification of Italy back in college, when I took a one semester of European History that I have a general idea of what took place in the 19th historical period of Italy, in which this fictional story took place. I've seen a few clips and trailers though with subtitles in English before I saw the entire Italian movie.
Seeing the Prince of Salina voting yes in the plebiscete gave me the idea that he was conceding that the winds of change is afoot, and it's useless to resist. I've seen only one movie of actor Burt Lancaster on tv last month and I don't even know what the title was because I did not catch its opening credits, a western with Audrey Hepburn, both of them, I think, did a mediocre job in it. But in this movie, Lancaster's contemplations about the inevitable effects of a unified Italy moved me. He seems to me to be the benevolent kind of aristocrat, who tries to keep his integrity and knows his limits, and the values he wants to retain. While he mourns the eventual passing of the old order, he was clear-minded enough to accept Angelica as future wife of his nephew. Angelica who came from a nouveau rich family, whose root is from peasantry, who does not know, or chooses to ignore, that there are rules of decorous behavior to be observed in the company of the upper class. I understood what the Prince felt staring at the painting of an old man obviously dead, surrounded by grieving women. I felt he had accepted too his own mortality, and its a new generation who'll have to carry on, whether for worst or for better. But since he's stil alive and not yet dead, he gathered himself, leopard that he is, and with majestic effort, danced with Angelica with a vitality he was able to summon, a sign of welcoming an "outsider" to their fold, in support of his nephew Tancredi, who has an instinct for survival in the changing times of that period in Italy.
I enjoyed all the ball scenes, even the last one that many think is too long. It was to me as if the people knew it may not happen again, and they are all taking their time to savor the lavishness of the moment like this might be the last ball party of their lives. There were a few young couples who stayed even when many have left, dancing to the lively tunes of the orchestra.
Too, I understand why there are some who are turned off by the overly lavish production designs -- the sets, costumes etc... But to me they were so beautiful and quite representative of the excessive lifestyle of the aristocracy, or those who aspire to it like Angelica's family. It is the external manifestation of power to them, which may or may not reflect their true inner qualities. So it's quite realistic to me in that sense, like how it was outside of the palace. In areas of ordinary people, in the voting place, there is dust in the air, so that the Prince has to cover his mouth with a handkerchief, the only one to do it, others seems to accept it as something that is part of their lives. I had to smile watching a couple sitting comfortably in a park bench as if it was alright that a thin fog of dust, though golden in sunlight, is about them.
And the panoramic view of Sicily in some scenes are awesome, and the others in limited frame just lovely.
The final scene of Lancaster was touching, to me that is, a quiet and meaningful gesture as if saying "Thy Will be done", a complete, calm, acceptance of what is inevitable, and in a place inconsitent to where aristocrats would rather be.
Truth inexorably,inscrutably seeks and reveals Itself into the Light.
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