Film of the day: Iddu by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza

IDDU

Venice 81 – Competition

Italy/France, 2024 – Director: Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza – Form: Elio Germano, Toni Servillo, Barbora Bobulova, Fausto Russo Alessi, Antonia Truppo, Tommaso Ragno – Playing time: 131′ – Distribution: 01 Distribution

Directing couples work. That’s what brothers Coen and Taviani learn. Homonyms, like the Daniels. Or even those with different first and last names, but who are aware that when a mutual critical eye confirms a shared vision, the rest will follow. It’s interesting to note that another directing couple, formed by Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana, has concentrated in recent years on a mafia, fantasy and classical inspired story, The Count of Monte Cristo, in their beautiful series The villainwhose second season we will see in early 2025. We also hope that sooner or later they will make their debut in the Venetian league, as is the case this year for Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazzawho, with Idduto bring a very true Italian story to the big screen. It is the fleetingness, long and certainly facilitated by silences and distractions, of Matteo Messina Denarothe undisputed leader of Cosa Nostra, was arrested in a private clinic in January 2023, as the Stasi and Fontana himself had strangely predicted.

One wonders whether it is cinema that draws from reality or the other way around. Grassadonia and Piazza already spoke about Messina Denaro in their previous film, Sicilian ghost storyinspired by the tragic story of Giuseppe Di Matteo, son of Santino, an accomplice of justice who knew too much about the Capaci massacre. His guilt fell on Giuseppe, who, after two years and more in prison, was dissolved in acid a few days before his 15th birthday on the orders of Iddu, as he is generically called in the film. Iddu has the face of Elio Germanan actor who never gives up when faced with challenges. Iddu is secluded in an apartment, and his contact with the world is that of a woman played by Barbora Bobulova. The man is not alone in that house: he is always accompanied by the ghosts of his past, from his father to all those whose lives he has taken. Outside, someone offers him something that, paradoxically, tastes like freedom. After two participations at the Cannes Film Festival in the Semaine de la Critique, also with their debut film, Salvo, Grassadonia and Piazza leap, with a first-class cast, which, in addition to the aforementioned, Toni Servillo, Tommaso Ragno, Antonia TruppoThat Fausto Russo Alessi highly appreciated in Marco Bellocchio’s Rapito, and above all with a story that will inevitably be discussed. But, more importantly, that does not forget. Since Matteo Messina Denaro Iddu will not be able to see him, he has joined all those he wanted to let go before him. But we who are still here, let us not forget him. Above all, let us not forget that you do not disappear for thirty years without someone’s help.

L’articolo Film of the day: Iddu by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza proviene da Ciak Magazine.