Movie Review: The Traitor

The Traitor *** / *****

Directed by: Marco Bellocchio.

Written by: Marco Bellocchio & Valia Santella & Ludovica Rampoldi & Francesco Piccolo and Francesco La Licata.

Starring: Pierfrancesco Favino (Tommaso Buscetta), Luigi Lo Cascio (Totuccio Contorno), Fausto Russo Alesi (Giovanni Falcone), Maria Fernanda Cândido (Maria Cristina de Almeida Guimarães), Fabrizio Ferracane (Pippo Calò), Nicola Calì (Totò Riina), Giovanni Calcagno (Tano Badalamenti), Bruno Cariello (Alfonso Giordano), Bebo Storti (Franco Coppi), Vincenzo Pirrotta (Luciano Liggio), Goffredo Maria Bruno (Stefano Bontate),Gabriele Cicirello (Benedetto Buscetta), Paride Cicirello (Antonio Buscetta), Elia Schilton (Giornalista TV), Alessio Praticò (Scarpuzzedda), Pier Giorgio Bellocchio (Cesare), Rosario Palazzolo (Giovanni De Gennaro), Antonio Orlando (Michele), Ada Nisticò (Alessandra Buscetta), Federica Butera (Silvana Buscetta), Giovanni Crozza Signoris (Tommaso Buscetta giovane), Alberto Gottuso (Giuseppe Inzerillo), Tatu La Vecchia (Fra Giacinto), Sergio Pierattini (Giudice Alfonso Giordano), Raffaella Lebboroni (Giudice donna), Giuseppe Di Marca (Giulio Andreotti). 

 

The Traitor is basically the final 15 minutes of GoodFellas stretched out to two-and-a-half hours. Marco Bellocchio’s film focuses on Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino), the Cosa Nostra’s most legendary rat. He tried to leave that life behind for a peaceful one in Rio, but when the Mafia war in Italy breaks out, killing hundreds, including many members of his own family, he ends up instead spending essentially the last 20 years of his life – from 1980-2000 – in Witness Protection in America, unless he was flown back to Italy to testify against his former co-workers, always incased in bullet proof glass in the courtroom. These men, of course, see him as the lowest of the low – they all may be murderers, drug smugglers and all-around horrible men – but at least they aren’t rats.

 

Bellocchio is, of course, a legendary Italian filmmaker – his remarkable debut film, Fists in the Pocket, came out 55 years ago, and he’s been working steadily ever since. This film is surprisingly linear for Bellocchio – and more disappointingly, really lacks any real perspective on Buscetta himself. Bellocchio is basically content to follow along his path to being a rat – and the film stacks one courtroom scene on top of another. The courtroom scenes are always interesting and entertaining – partly because Favino is such a great actor and able to hold attention on himself, and partly just because they are naturally dramatic anyway. At a certain point though, they are very much the same thing after another – and all the names and faces of the people he is ratting on start to bleed together.

 

There is one fantastic sequence in the film – and it stands out because he’s so unlike everything else in the film. That is when the mafia takes a hit out on the lead prosecutor that Buscetta has been working with for more than a decade – by planting a bomb under his car, which explodes while he is driving. The whole thing is shot from inside the car as it explodes, and tumbles over. It is a remarkable sequence. Also wonderful is a detail embedded in the first part of the movie, and the returned to at the end. Buscetta tells the story of the first man he was ever assigned to kill. He waits for him outside his son’s baptism, and when he locks eyes with Buscetta, and knows what is coming, grabs his baby boy for protection – and from then on, wouldn’t go anywhere without him – essentially using his child as a human shield – knowing even the Mafia has its limits.

 

Its that kind of detail that is missing from the rest of the movie, that could have elevated the whole thing. This is a mob movie that pointedly doesn’t want to even show the entertaining side. Scorsese’s GoodFellas entertains you for more than two-hours before lowering the boom on you, and it becomes crystal clear, if it hadn’t already, what kind of people you have been watching. There isn’t a touch of that romanticism here. That is admirable in one sense – but sure doesn’t help The Traitor’s entertainment value.

Movie Review: Blood of My Blood

Blood of My Blood

Directed by: Marco Bellocchio.

Written by: Marco Bellocchio.

Starring: Roberto Herlitzka (Conte), Pier Giorgio Bellocchio (Federico), Alba Rohrwacher (Maria Perletti), Lidiya Liberman (Benedetta), Federica Fracassi (Marta Perletti), Toni Bertorelli (Dott. Cavanna), Fausto Russo Alesi (Cacciapuoti), Alberto Cracco (Inquisitore Francescano), Bruno Cariello (Angelo), Filippo Timi (Il pazzo), Elena Bellocchio (Elena), Ivan Franek (Rikalkov), Patrizia Bettini (Moglie del conte), Sebastiano Filocamo (Padre confessore), Alberto Bellocchio (Cardinal Federico Mai).

 

Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio has been directing films for 50 years now – his debut film, Fists in the Pocket (1965) may still be his best known, and is certainly a masterwork. I’m not sure he ever quite gets the credit he deserves for how good he is, and I include myself there, as I certainly need to see more of his work (I haven’t disliked any of the films I have seen). His latest film, Blood of My Blood, is an ambitious and ambiguous film, showing once again that this director – now in his late 70s – isn’t going to take it easy in his remaining years. The film is a beautiful, haunting and confounding film – one that I think demands a second viewing (at least) to truly understand it – particularly in how the two distinct halves of the movie relate to each other (although, even on first viewing, you can clearly see some echoes in each half). It’s also a film that continues to grow in your mind after seeing – calling you back to it.

 

Both halves of the film take place in Bellocchio’s hometown of Bobbio, Italy – centuries apart. In the first, set during the Inquisition period, a soldier, Federico (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) arrives the Bobbio monastery, upset that his brother has been given a sinner’s funeral. His brother has recently committed suicide, but has always been a devout man with the Church. He talks to the Priest in charge (Fausto Russo Alesi), who informs Federico that what needs to happen is that a young, beautiful nun, Benedetta (Lidiya Liberman) needs to confess – she was close to Federico’s brother near the year, and many think she was in league with the Devil, poking and prodding the devout man to commit suicide. She is forced to endure a series of painful “tests” to prove she is not in league with the Devil after all. Federico becomes torn when he, like his brother, falls for Benedetta – and he is torn apart by his own doubts.

 

The second half of the film talks place in modern Bobbio, where a man from the tax office, Federico (Bellocchio, again), arrives with a Russian billionaire in tow, who wants to buy the monastery (or prison as they now call it), to either turn it into a musical rehab place for drug addicts, or a luxury hotel – whatever. The problem is the dilapidated monastery isn’t as empty as people think – the Count (Roberto Herlitzka) has been living there for 8 years, hidden away from his wife, and most of the rest of the town (oh, and he’s a vampire). He remains a powerful man however – with ties to the town council – but now he must come out and deal with these outsiders.

 

The first half of the film is stronger than the second. It’s more beautiful, haunting and enigmatic than the second, with a brilliant score, and a haunting choral version of a Metallica song which is somehow the absolutely perfect choice for it. The second half is a little more obvious – as Bellocchio seems to be taking some rather easy shots as the emptiness of modern life. But it’s still wonderful to watch him work.

 

At the end of Blood of My Blood, I felt the urge to go back and watch it again – which seeing as how I saw it at TIFF, was impossible at the time. The film is confounding, but in a pleasurable way. Does everything add up in Blood of My Blood. I’m honestly not sure – but I’m also sure I don’t much care. It’s always wonderful to see a great director pushing himself even late in his career – and that’s certainly the case with Blood of My Blood. I just hope this one doesn’t get lost in the shuffle – like far too many recent Bellocchio films have.

 

Note: As far as I can tell, this film is not getting a theatrical release in North America any time soon. I did notice that it is available on iTunes (in Canada anyway), so I’m posting my review that I wrote after last year’s TIFF, where I saw it.

The Best Movies I've Never Seen Before: Fists in the Pocket (1965)

Fists in the Pocket (1965) ****

Directed by: Marco Bellocchio.

Written by: Marco Bellocchio.

Starring: Lou Castel (Alessandro), Paola Pitagora (Giulia), Marino Masé (Augusto), Liliana Gerace (Mother), Stefania Troglio (Chambermaid), Jeannie McNeil (Lucia), Gianni Schicchi (Tonino), Alfredo Filippazzi (Doctor), Pier Luigi Troglio (Leone).

Marco Bellocchio is a very interesting Italian director. He made a big splash with his debut film, Fists in the Pocket (1965), funded by his family, but his career has been up and down ever since. He has never garnered the recognition of many of his contemporaries in Italy, and often his films have been hated or ignored. But he is currently undergoing a little bit of a renaissance – his 2002 film My Mother’s Smile was highly acclaimed (although unseen by me) as was his most recent film – 2009’s Vincere, which I saw at TIFF that year. Because his films have not been as popular as some other directors, they can be hard to find. Personally, up until I watched this film, the only one I had seen was Vincere. On the basis of those two films, I wanted to see more of his work.

Fists in the Pocket is not an easy film to love. It is a film without a redeeming character. The star is Lou Castel, playing Alessandro, a budding young psychopath, who targets his family. His older brother Augusto (Marino Mase) is supporting the family, in their large rundown house in the country – but is tired of doing so. Their elderly mother is blind and needs constant care, and Augusto is engaged to a beautiful young woman, and wants to move to the city. But Alessandro needs Augusto around. Thinking that if he got the mother out of the way, Augusto may stay, Alessandro pushes her off a cliff. When Augusto seems more determined than ever to leave, Alessandro sets his sights on his younger brother – who is mentally retarded. Then there is their sister Giulia (Paoloa Pitagora), isn’t much better, and is certainly sexually attracted to both Augusto and Alessandro – and may have actually acted out her fantasies with the later. She is amused by Alessandro’s games, until she realizes that he may set his sights on her.

Fists in the Pocket is credited alongside the work of Bernardo Bertolucci and Pier Paolo Pasolini as a new step in Italian cinema that was still very much in the neo-realist mode of post WWII in the mid 1960s. This film lashes out against that, in a surreal, dark comedy where Bellocchio pays homage to two of his heroes – Michelangelo Antonnini and Luis Bunuel – two directors who ironically issues very public put downs of this film.

The film exposes the middle class, Catholic hypocrisy that Bellocchio, who was then a Marxist, saw all around him. This is a movie about a family of horrible people, who seem to know in advance what their ultimate end will, and perhaps even welcome it. Augusto is portrayed as the type of bourgeois that are hated by Marxists – people who care about money and material things, rejecting humanity. It is not a flattering portrait of him, but it is also not one without sympathy, which is what separates Fists in the Pocket from other such screeds about middle class values. You have to almost admire Augusto for not simply running out on his eternally screwed up family – many others would have. The mother is seen as pathetic, collecting thousands of magazines, even though she’s blind and cannot read them, and constantly whining right up to the point when she’s pushed off that cliff. Giulia may simply be bored – there is little else to do out in the country, and she enjoys the darkness that Alessandro indulges in. In the role Pitagora is truly remarkable, because she is the character in the film that is the hardest to read. She’s unstable yes, but just how unstable? How far has she gone with Alessandro? When she writes a note to Augusto’s fiancée, why is she trying to break them up? Augusto’s fiancée, from outside the family, correctly sees this family as insane and destructive, and simply wants to get Alessandro away from them. You can hardly blame her for that either.

The best performance in the movie is clearly by Castel as Alessandro, the young psychopath. Castel is great in the scenes where he kills his mother and later his brother, although he takes no joy in either killing. Nor does he take any joy in a party that Augusto brings him along to – we see him constantly on the outside looking in, trying to figure out just how everyone else in the room ticks. Yet Bellocchio may in fact have more sympathy for Alessandro than anyone else. He is the only one who at least sees the hypocrisy, the meaninglessness of the family’s life more clearly than anyone else – and he does something about it. It’s certainly not the right thing, but at least it’s something.

Bellocchio said that the best thing about debut films is that because you have no past, you are free to take whatever risks you want to. No one expects anything from you. And perhaps that’s why Fists in the Pocket seems so daring, even today 46 years after it was first made. Bellocchio may not have had quite the career that he wanted to after making Fists in the Pocket – but with this film, he forever altered the landscape of Italian cinema, and cinema around the world. You may never look at teenage outcasts the same after seeing this film.

Movie Review: Vincere

Vincere *** ½
Directed By: Marco Bellocchio.
Written By: Marco Bellocchio & Daniela Ceselli.
Starring: Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Ida Dalser), Filippo Timi (Benito Mussolini / Benito Albino), Fabrizio Costella (Benito Albino), Corrado Invernizzi (Dottor Cappelletti), Fausto Russo Alesi (Riccardo Paicher), Michela Cescon (Rachele Guidi), Pier Giorgio Bellocchio (Pietro Fedele), Paolo Pierobon (Giulio Bernardi), Bruno Cariello (Giudice), Francesca Picozza (Adelina), Simona Nobili (Madre Superiora), Giovanna Mori (Tedesca), Silvia Ferretti (Scarpette rosse), Corinne Castelli (Lacrime), Patrizia Bettini (Cantante).

When Vincere opens, Benito Mussolini (Filippo Timi) is a no name socialist provocateur in pre WWI Italy. In his opening scene, he tells a roomful of Union Men, and clergymen, that if God does not strike him dead in the next five minutes, then it is proof that God does not exist. After his speech, the meeting descends into chaos. This is when Mussolini first sees Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). There is sexual chemistry between them even in the midst of all the arguing and fighting around them. It isn’t long before these two are falling in love, getting married and having a son, who they name after Benito himself. But then Mussolini goes off to war, becomes a hero, and then wants nothing to do with Dalser. He has married someone else, and denies ever marrying Dalser. Because he has become a powerful politician, he has the power to silence her - even enough influence to put her in a mental institution to shut her up.

Thus is the story of Marco Bellocchio’s new film Vincere (which means Victory). Bellocchio has been making incendiary political dramas since the 1960s, when his debut film Fists in the Pocket caused a stir. With Vincere, Bellocchio tells a little known story from Italy’s past. In the early scenes of the movie, Mussolini is portrayed as darkly handsome, and dangerously sexy. You can see why a fiery beauty like Mezzogiorno’s Dasler would fall for him as quickly as she does. The movies numerous sex scenes are extended and erotic, without ever becoming overly graphic. Once Mussolini comes back from the war, and refuses to acknowledge Dasler, we see him only through his numerous speeches in newsreel footage - paunchy and overly angry. The film also mixes in various political propaganda ads to show just how Italy was changing at the time.

Yet the movie remains Dasler’s story. To a certain extent, the movie reminded me of Clint Eastwood’s Changeling about a mother who is branded insane by the LA police force when they return her “son” to them, and she insists that it is the wrong boy. Yet Vincere never devolves into melodramatic nonsense, like Changeling often played as. Dalser is portrayed as obsessively stubborn. She is repeatedly told that if she will just stop insisting that she is Mussolini’s rightful wife, then she will be released from the hospital and be reunited with her son. But she just cannot do it. Against her better judgment, she loves Mussolini, and believes that he loves her as well. All these years of torment are just his way of testing her. While she is not insane when she enters the hospital, as the years drag on, she slowly becomes so.

And her poor son fairs no better on the outside. Abandoned by his father, and having his mother taken away from him, and given to a rich, arrogant man to be raised, Benito Jr. simply really has no chance at a normal life. Played late in the movie by Tippi again, we see him as the spitting image of his father, who does a mean impression of the President himself. But he cannot deal with all the pressure

The movie is carried by the great performance by Mezzogiorno (and to a lesser extent Tippi, who is great in the opening and closing scenes of the films, but not on screen at all during the long middle segments). Mezzogiorno never loses our sympathy, even if at times we become frustrated with her actions. Sure, what Mussolini did to her was heartless, cruel and wrong, but does she never stop to think about what her actions are doing to her son? Although we believe that she loves her son, we simply want her to give in and take the offer to get out. The amazing thing about the performance is that Mezzogiorno makes us understand her actions, even while we disagree with them. It is one of the best performances of the year.

Bellocchio is a master filmmaker, and Vincere is undoubtedly his best film in a number of years. It is a classically well made, and well structured story. His anger is palpable and comes across on screen remarkably well. Now well into his 60s, he shows no signs of slowing down. Vincere is one of his triumphs of his career.