Sicilian Letters (Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza)

“It is these fragments of characterization that Sicilian letters the bit of color it so desperately needs, as the story develops exactly as you would expect.”

Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested on January 16, 2023, at a private clinic near Palermo, Sicily. Denaro, nicknamed Diabolik after an Italian comic book hero, was one of the last Sicilian mafia bosses still at large. Once named the world’s third most wanted fugitive, he remained elusive for a long time, but in 2006, Italian secret services came close to capturing him after they found a former mayor of his hometown, who had known the mafioso since he was a boy, and who was willing to start a correspondence with Denaro, who had been in hiding since the series of bombings that terrorized Italy in the early 1990s. The takedown of a network of “postmen” who pizza (notes written by Mafia members) back and forth, the Secret Service was about to arrest Denaro when the correspondence abruptly stopped after it became public knowledge that one side of the conversation was actually working undercover for the authorities.

Italian directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza remain true to their Sicilian cinema roots in their third joint feature film. Sicilian letters (Iddu), taking this true story as the starting point for another film set on the Italian island that is the birthplace of Grassadonia (Piazza was born in Milan). By setting the story near Denaro’s birthplace of Castelvetrano in southern Sicily, it actually moves twenty kilometres further south to the archaeological site and coastal town of Selinunte, Sicilian letters sticks closely to the story, even as the former mayor is replaced by a local politician named Catello Palumbo (played by Tony Servillo, with a hideous comb-over). Fresh out of prison, it isn’t long before he’s recruited to catch Matteo (Elio Germano), the successor to a notorious mafia leader who’s gone underground. The two men have known each other for a long time; Catello was a friend of Matteo’s late father and has known Matteo since he was born. Catello writes Matteo a letter, delivered via the so-called pizzatightly folded sheets of paper wrapped in tape (hidden in fish, for example) and delivered by trusted people. He pitches the younger man a deal on an unfinished hotel Catello had been developing before he went to prison; since trust is a currency on the island, Matteo actually writes back, and thus begins a back-and-forth between two men who find an unexpected connection in literature. The trick is to lure Matteo out of hiding, and the way to do that is through Matteo’s young son…

While Sicilian letters is based on a true story, most of the characters are fictional or amalgamations of different people. As such, the film is full of stock characters that form the basis of crime films like this, such as the villainous investigator Rita (Daniela Marra) or the mysterious woman who is hiding Matteo, Lucia (Barbora Bobulova). Most of these characters are merely plot twists, although these two in particular also have plenty of depth through their relationships with Catello and Matteo respectively. The character of Lucia in particular gives Matteo more texture, since they essentially only share one location. In his conversations with her, Matteo processes the death of his strict father who prepared him to become the big crime boss of the region through hardship and tough love. Grassadonia and Piazza are less generous to Catello, giving Servillo a fair amount of humorous lines to work with, but not much development of his character from the calculating man who knows how to weigh his words. It is fun to see how both protagonists play with language in the letters they send to each other. They never openly reveal their intentions, but they do give each other subtle hints about the next steps in their relationship.

It is these fragments of characterization that Sicilian letters the bit of color it so desperately needs, as the story develops exactly as you would expect, even if it is more or less a carbon copy of the real story. There are a lot of other characters who all get their moment to shine, such as Catello’s clumsy son-in-law Pino (Giuseppe Tantillo) or Matteo’s tough sister Stefania (Antonia Truppo), but their story overwhelms and complicates the plot of the film, which should have focused more on the main characters playing their game of chess via the title letters. That is not to say Sicilian letters is not a pleasant two hours, especially in the company of two excellent actors in Servillo and Germano, but once the film deviates from those two and puts other characters in the spotlight, it takes a dive. The directors’ first venture outside of Cannes Critics Week after their debut Salvo and sequel Sicilian ghost story is a step back from those two, but Sicilian letters is entertaining and provides an interesting lesson in the long history of organized crime on the island.

(c) Image copyright: Giulia Parlato