Sicily's gift to the world explored in Kim Longinotto's fine doc, SHOOTING THE MAFIA

I've long opined that if you want to see a movie that really holds the Mafia up to scrutiny without in any way glamorizing this shit-hole organization, that film had better be Italian.

So it is again with the exemplary documentary, SHOOTING THE MAFIA, from British filmmaker Kim Longinotto that tracks the history, career and work of Palermo-born Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia, who, though her work spans a wide array of subjects, is best known for her photographs of the Mafia and their countless killings in Sicily.

Ms Battaglia (below) proves a terrific subject for a documentary, and Ms Longinotto (at left) does her ample justice, offering up a fine serving of this most unusual woman's history: her youth and young adulthood as a married woman champing at the bit for more freedom and expression; the period in which she begins work as a journalist but finds she has more proclivity, passion and talent for photography; her long array of productive relationships with men, all of whom are attractive and interesting, some of whom remain part of her life today.

One of these many men, pictured in his youth, appears below. The major concentration of this movie, of course, is on the Mafia and the increasing role it comes to play in Battaglia's life and work. The photographs we see in the film are reason enough -- if you've any interest in great photography -- to put it on your must-see list.

These photographs, most of them showing murder, are so much more than simply that. They're shocking, yes, but shot (and composition-wise maybe cropped) so well that all the passion, horror, grief, sadness and especially to stupid waste that the Mafia inflicts on society, wherever its rotten tentacles can reach, is on full display.

Longinotto's ability to mix past documentary footage with her current use of Battaglia gives us the shards of history and knowledge we need to fully understand appreciate the depravity of this sick organization and its near-constant killing sprees.

With some of the photography, Battaglia reflects on what it meant to her then and now. There's often a quite a difference, as with the photo (above) of the young prostitute and a couple of her gay friends -- all murdered because the girl broke that cardinal Mafia rule: She tried to work for herself.

As you might expect, this documentary gathers steam and a strong sense of feminism as it moves along. Women have long been relegated to second-rate in Italy, and Battaglia is having none of that. She knows her place, all right, and she's going to make sure that the men know it, too. She's not simply pushy; he has everything it takes to back up that pushiness.

Much of the movie is devoted to the famous 1986-87 Mafia trials involving Judge Giovanni Falcone above), later assassinated, along with his wife, by the Mafia. (Watching these documentary scenes should immediately bring back the recent Bellocchio film on this subject, The Traitor.) Then, to see what looks like half of the Sicilian population turn out in the streets to condemn and protest not just the Mafia but the politicians who help keep them in power proves a most stirring and life-affirming scene.

There is so much to appreciate -- the photographs, the history, the characters -- in this fine documentary about a woman and her work, neither of which you're likely to forget, that for anyone interested in Italy and the character of the Italian people, in photography and the Mafia, TrustMovies cannot imagine your missing the opportunity to see this fine film.

(The five-minute interview with director Longinotto, part of the Bonus Features on the disc, is a must-see, as well.)

After a limited theatrical release this past November via Cohen Media Group, Shooting the Mafia hit the street on DVD and Blu-ray just yesterday, Tuesday, March 24 -- for purchase and/or rental.

A CIAMBRA: Blu-ray/DVD debut for Jonas Campignano's docu-like tale of Romani in Italy

Laden with awards and nominations -- from international festivals and in its own country of Italy via the David Di Donatellos, the Italian version of our "Oscars" -- and also greeted with enthusiasm when it opened theatrically here in the USA earlier this year, A CIAMBRA (so named for an unfinished housing development and neighborhood, shown two photos below, occupied for some years now by a community of Romani people in the Calabria region of Southern Italy) is a hybrid documentary-style narrative film in which an enormous (and real) Romani family, all playing themselves, help tell the tale of one of its younger members, a teenager named Pio, who wants more than anything to become a criminal just like his weirdly adored older asshole brother.

As written and directed by Jonas Campignano (shown at right, of Mediterranea), the movie fairly reeks of reality. You could not ask for anything more "honest" -- from the performances (not simply "warts and all" but "warts and more warts") to the screenplay and dialog (which is noticeably sparse and seems quite believable) and direction and camera-work (by Tim Curtin) that could hardly be more immersive and on-the-mark.

The movie shows us the plight of the Romani in Italy as third-class (if that) citizens, barely a cut above -- in the eyes of the "real" Italians -- those black African immigrants who also flood the area. A Ciambra neither glamorizes nor in any way idealizes its protagonists; in fact, it shows them to be, in many cases, their own worst enemy -- dreaming of a more "romantic," on-the-move past, while doing little (except theft) to address the needs of the present, let alone the future.

And yet the movie itself is paced so slowly, with a plot as obvious and predictable in its own way as any Hollywood sit-com, that it quickly becomes a slough and a real ordeal to have to sit through, given that most viewers with any experience in watching either documentaries or narratives about the "downtrodden" will know exactly where it's going and pretty much how it will get there, too.

Fortunately, the film has as its leading actor a young name named Pio Amato (above), who has at least enough charisma to help carry the film along. We experience all that happens through his eyes and mind, and he does make an interesting and very problemed companion for much of the time. He has no interest in anything except becoming a criminal like his brother (Damiano Amato, below), which as he sees it, is the only viable way to help support his hugely extended family.

Along the way, he (sort of) befriends one of the more helpful Africans (Koudous Seihon, below) and a kind of bond is eventually created, tested, and -- in the film's most moving scene -- broken between them.

"Family first," a mantra too often heard in the world, from culture to culture, rears its ugly head and, via a particularly ugly betrayal, our non-hero sees his fondest wish come true. Surprise? Hardly. And at just two minutes short of two full hours, the movie -- with little plot machination other than that of my description above -- often seems endless.

No hope or even possibility of change is offered -- which is most likely on a par with reality, so far as the Romani are concerned. (Their links to the Mafiosi do not help matters.) And while the film takes place in Italy, one suspects the rest of Europe is quite similar -- as would the U.S. be, too, were the Romani to make any real inroads here.

In fact, one wonders if Signore Campignano would not be the right man to visit America, explore the innermost regions of poor, white, racist Trump country, and then make a movie about how these people, via their beliefs and behavior, are sealing their own -- as well as their country's -- death warrant.

From IFC Films and running 118 minutes, A Ciambra arrives on Blu-ray (the transfer is a decent one, and the bonus features plentiful) and DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 10 -- for purchase and/or rental.

OPEN ROADS 2018: Crime, the Church and the Mafia in the D'Innocenzo brothers' BOYS CRY and Vincenzo Marra's EQUILIBRIUM

One subject the FSLC annual series, OPEN ROADS, usually includes in its round-up of new Italian films is -- hello -- the Mafia in one ugly iteration or another. This year includes at least two such films (of those I've been able to view). Both are interesting and relatively well-executed, but the more-so of the two proves to be the one that takes the quieter, less-traveled and less-overtly-violent-while-being-even-more awful-to-contemplate route.

In EQUILIBRIUM (L'equilibrio), written and directed by Vincenzo Marra, the first thing we see is the famous Warner Brothers logo (the studio clearly had something to do with funding and/or distribution), which leads you to wonder why Warners never makes American movies that are this timely or important. The film shows us -- slowly, simply, shockingly via life in an Italian suburb -- the intersection of crime, environmental contamination, government failure and The Catholic Church.

This quartet of horrors, in which the Church proves the most horrible, has reduced the populace to near-literal slavery and many, many deaths. When a handsome, middle-aged priest (newcomer Mimmo Borrelli, above), trying to avoid a would-be romantic entanglement, requests a transfer from Rome back to his home-town parrish, he is suddenly confronted by all of this -- which understandably takes him some time to comprehend. (Why is the church school's playground closed off to the children so that a pet goat can stay there?)

Our hero, for that is certainly what he is, begins trying to change things. But how does one man, even if he is a priest, go up against this combination of powers? ("That collar," notes one of the crime gang, "is the only only thing keeping you alive, Father.") Filmmaker Marra does a quietly powerful job of making all this seem as believable as it is disgusting, and our priest's (as well as the viewer's) increasing shock at the deep involvement of the Church in abetting and covering up the crime lords' environmental pollution, drug sales, and sex abuse, makes it ever more difficult for him to do the job he believes he must do.

It won't take much pushing to see Equilibrium as a look at where the USA itself is heading under the current control of Republicans and the Trump administration. The only thing missing here is the criminal/Mafia element. But with this administration, Congress and our devolving court system, the criminal element is already built in. And so far as the Catholic Church is concerned, simply replace this priest with a member of a Christian fundamentalist church who just wants that church to get back to the real teachings of Jesus instead of preaching bigotry and hatred, and you'd have a nifty American version.

Meanwhile, Equilibrium, in Italian with English subtitles and running just 90 minutes, will play Open Roads this Sunday, June 3, at 1pm (there will be a Q&A with Vincenzo Marra, shown above, right, following the screening) and Wednesday, June 6, at 4:30pm. Click here for more information and/or tickets.

A new, young Italian filmmaking team of brothers, Damiano D'Innocenzo and Fabio D'Innocenzo, are at the helm, as writers and directors, of BOYS CRY (La terra dell'abbastanza), another gangland-driven drama included in Open Roads. Although flashier, cinematically darker, and considerably more violent and bloody than Equilibrium, TrustMovies found the brothers' movie a little too been there/done that to qualify as anything exactly "new." Still, in terms of pitch dark movies about family, friendship, betrayal, stupidity and greed, this one has got to rank pretty high.

The D'Innocenzo brothers (shown above) have contrived a tale of two "best friends"-- Mirko (newcomer Matteo Olivetti, below, right) and Manolo (Andrea Carpenzano, below, left) who, in terms of honesty, decency and anything approaching actual friendship, have a lot to learn. Instead, thanks to Manolo's dumb dad, the pair becomes involved with the local gang and is soon acting as its go-to hit men.

Everything about the movie seems a tad too "manufactured" in order to demonstrate its themes of betrayal and greed. From the opening car accident to the identity of its victim to the gangland connection right on through to the final, full-circle irony -- which is far too pat to be taken seriously -- everything clicks so nicely into place that the rub-your-face-in-the-dirt reality the brothers so seem to want comes at the expense of some believability.

The look of the film is spectacularly cruddy, intentionally so, I've no doubt. With gangland films set in Sicily, we can usually look forward to some beautiful location cinematography. What you get here is ugly-and-then-some. Performances are as fine all around as they're allowed to be, with barely a chance given to any character except maybe Mirko's mom (Milena Mancini, above) to behave in any way other than badly.

Still, the charisma of the two leads, coupled to their characters' unrelieved stupidity, may rope in the younger set, while providing more mature audiences with yet another chance to ponder raw youth at its least appetizing.

In Italian with English subtitles and running 95 minutes, Boys Cry screens at Open Roads on Sunday, June 3, at 3:30 pm (after which there will be a Q&A with the D'Innocenzo brothers) and Tuesday June 5 at 2:30 pm. Click here to view the entire Open Roads series, and here and here to see my earlier posts on this year's films.

"Rob the Mob" again, as Nick Sandow's grittier and uglier version, THE WANNABE, opens

One of TrustMovies favorite films of last year was Raymond DeFelitta's enchanting true-life crime tale, Rob the Mob (my review is here). What a surprise, then, to encounter another, different version of the same story in this week's opener, THE WANNABE. The copyright date shown at the end of the end credits for this "new" film lists 2013, which does lead one to wonder: Why was not The Wannabe released prior to Rob the Mob? Did star Patricia Arquette's "Oscar" win this past year have anything to do with why we're suddenly seeing the film in theaters? Or maybe it's because of the fact that another "Oscar" winner, Martin Scorsese, is one of its executive producers, with his name prominently displayed on the movie's poster. Whatever. Here it is, comin' atcha, and hey, it's not a bad film at all.

Unfortunately, it is also not nearly as good nor as entertaining as the DeFelitta version, though it is every bit as well-acted. Writer/director Nick Sandow (shown at left and probably best known at this point for his role as prison-warden-wannabe in Orange Is the New Black) is clearly more interested in the darker side of this tale and its two leading characters, a younger man (the wannabe of the title, very well-limbed by Vincent Piazza) and his older woman girlfriend, played with ever-increasing flair and determination by a very believable and ultra-fiery Ms Arquette (shown below).

The Wannabe begins well and hold its own for some time, as we learn about and actually grow to like these two clearly damaged people. Just how damaged (and by what) will come clear a bit later. For now, it's enough that Piazza's Thomas (below) is in thrall to mobster John Gotti, while Arquette's Rose is clearly smitten with this strange young man who quickly falls in love with his "dynamite" woman.

The two movies follow very similar courses -- we meet Thomas' brother (Michael Imperioli) who owns a florist shop, and look in on the job Rose find the kid with the company she works for and whose boss (John Ventimiglia) is a good guy willing to give Thomas, a parolee, a decent opportunity. Then come the mafia club robberies, which grow crazier and crazier until....

The difference resides in the tone and attitude of the filmmakers: De Felitta opts for charm and caring (as is usually his wont) over the darkness explored by Sandow. There's nothing wrong with darkness, mind you, but when it begins to grow repetitive and finally tiresome, we crave more.

Yet the performances from everyone on view are just fine, with Arquette the standout, and Piazza not far behind. She captures the thrill of a return to youth, while he nails the loser/wannabe side of his character while still managing to make believable the fact that this woman, with her many problems, could still fall hard for the likes of him. Piazza's acting embarrasses us at times -- but in the manner that only a genuinely believable performance can carry off. The kid is that good.

The handheld camera work is first-rate, tossing us into the middle of things and making them just as sad and ugly as they probably are; the dialog seems as accurate as you could want; and the movie even posits a nifty theory of just who it was that tried to kill Curtis Sliwa, due to this "commentator's" constant anti-Gotti heckling.

The Wannabe -- running a relatively swift first 60 minutes before bogging down some for its final 30 -- opens this Friday, December 4, in New York City at the AMC Empire 25 and in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood. 

The Italian Mafia sans any glamorization in Francesco Munzi's fine film, BLACK SOULS

"What a disgusting crew." That was my first note taken as I watched the new Mafia movie, BLACK SOULS, from director/co-writer Francesco Munzi. But why not? This is, after all, a Mafia movie made by Italians -- and not in the mainstream, oh-how-cute! mode of the recent and sort-of black-comic failure, The Mafia Kills Only in Summer. No. This film is about as grim and real as you could ask for. Except, of course, you probably won't. Because Americans demand their Mafia movies and TV shows be entertaining above all, and, yes, glamorous and fun. And don't tell me that The Godfather and, more recently, The Sopranos were not every bit of that, despite James Gandolfini's and the rest of the cast's remarkable performances in the latter. American Mafia movies somehow make "heroes" of their boys; Italians know them for the worthless pieces of walking/barely-talking shit that they are.

Since Gomorrah, there has not been a Mafia movie I've seen to equal the dark and pitiful lives on view in Black Souls. Filmmaker Munzi, shown at left, understands how the lives touched by these people are made infinitely worse by that fingering. This includes the families -- immediate and extended -- of the clan, as well as those who serve and service them. The picture painted here is dank and dismal but Munzi sure knows how to make it an interesting one, full of incident and development -- even as those incidents move from worse to worst.

Munzi is also a rigorous filmmaker in his insistence that we understand how things get done, Mafia style. Consequently we get a good dose of custom and tradition, including song and dance, along with the meetings, match-makings, killings and betrayals. The area (shown above and below) in which much of the film was shot may remind you of Le Quattro Volte (oh, those goats!), and there is even a scene in which a character combines ashes in water and drinks the glass up.

As awful as life is here, the reins of power keep changing, moving, so that neither we nor the characters can ever be quite certain if that power remains intact. What we come to understand, more fully than is usual in films of this genre, is how even those family members on the periphery are still, finally and totally, sucked into to the muck. There is no escape.

Community -- for this, antisocial as it may be, is exactly what we have here -- has rarely taken on such darkness. And interestingly enough, not even the women can bond in this hell. Instead, we see how, from generation to generation, this ugliness is simply passed onward.

"Did you give a shit about any of these people?" my spouse asked as the end credits rolled. Sure, I hated them -- not equally, but to some degree all of them -- the planners, the killers and the enablers. But I also understood them, and this is the key to Black Souls' great success. It allows you to comprehend so much about these people who have utterly broken the social contract and sold out their humanity in the process.

They may be scum, but we come to understand every last character: who they are and why they do what they do -- from shooting up the facade of a local store to murder, dog- and calf-killing and betrayal of one's best friend. Munzi's creation is no small achievement, and Black Souls is one hell of a fine film -- without a trace of glamorization to be found.

In the cast are some bigger names (Marco Leonardi, above, and Barbora Bobulova, at left, three photos above), and others you'll swear were picked off the dirt path of some mountain village. No matter, they all work together to form an utterly authentic ensemble.

The movie -- via Vitagraph Films and running a just-right 103 minutes -- opens this Friday, April 10, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and City Cinemas 123; in Los Angeles, look for it April 24 at the Landmark NuArt. In the weeks to come, it will open in another 17 cities across the country. You can see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, by clicking here.

Mafia-lite: Pierfrancesco Diliberto directs, acts in & co-writes THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN SUMMER

TrustMovies has long insisted that if you want to see a really good movie about the Mafia, it simply has to be Italian. Italians understand and are able to show these ugly, murdering sociopaths for the walking, talking pieces of crap that they are. American movies and television -- from The Godfather and The Sopranos on down (or up, depending on your viewpoint) always manage to glamorize their subject, no matter how "real" they try to make things. Italian films -- from I cento passi to The Sicilian Girl are a whole other breed.

Now comes something a little different: It's Italian, all right, and it's a kind of Mafia comedy. But not anything of the heavy-handed-but often-hilarious Joe Pesci variety. No. THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN SUMMER offers a combination coming-of-age/first-love tale set in Palermo, Sicily, and wrapped around the Mafia as perceived by our little (and then larger, older) hero. The film's creator (director, lead actor and co-writer), shown at right, is a popular Italian comic and satirist known as Pierfrancesco Diliberto, aka Pif.

His movie, initially quite charming and amusing, introduces us to his younger self, as the boy Arturo -- played by a very good young actor in his first role, Alex Bisconti, below, right -- learns about everything from love and parents to school and the Mafia, in the process forming what can only be called a rather warped view of things. Given that the general populace cannot and will not admit even to the Mafia's existence, it is little wonder our confused hero goes his own odd way.

Movie fans of Italian cinema who know and love Il Divo should get a big charge out Pif's use of newsreel footage of the real Giulio Andreotti, who soon becomes the particular hero of little Arturo. There's a journalist who befriend the kid, too, offering some good advice. And then there's the love of his life, Flora, who appears as the school's new girl and has Arturo in the palm of her hand forever after. Into all this is layered various Mafia killings, as Arturo tries to come to terms with what he does and doesn't see and understand. (The movie's title comes from something his father tells him to make things "better.")

All this is reasonably interesting and fun -- until the adult Arturo arrives, in the form of Pif himself, who may be a fine and funny talk show host but plays a bumbling adult hero in a surprisingly charmless fashion. He looks and acts a bit like our own Ray Romano but turns out to be -- at this point in his career, at least -- not much of an actor. The movie soon turns into what it has been threatening to become all along: a network-TV-level, romantic sit-com. As the adult Flora, however, Cristiana Capotondi (of Kryptonite!), shown above and below, right, brings a healthy dose of warmth and beauty to the proceedings.

There is a fairly amusing section during which Arturo works as a "pianist" on a popular TV show (below), on which the host practices his "French," but at the point at which the film moves from the kids to the adult figures, it soon ceases to be very funny,  insightful, or satiric. And its final "homage" to the dead judges and other heroes who stood up to the Mafia -- and died for it -- seems almost tacky and more than a tad out of place. As Arturo teaches his own little son the lessons of how these dead figures stood up to this criminal organization, we are clearly meant to learn and appreciate these lessons, too. But it all comes off as mostly Mafia-lite.

The Mafia Kills Only in Summer opens tomorrow, March 6, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, and in the Los Angeles area on March 27 at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7. Other cities will gain the film during April, as it expands across the country.