Review: Sicilian Letters – Cineuropa

05/09/2024 – VENICE 2024: Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza continue their creative journey, reflecting on the mafia culture in Sicily, with Elio Germano in the shoes of a boss in hiding and Toni Servillo as a corrupt politician

Toni Servillo and Elio Germano in Sicilian letters

The directing duo consisting of Fabio Grassadonia And Antonio Square made their debut at Cannes Critics Week in 2013 with Salvo (+see also:
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movie profile)a brilliant and creative modern western about a mafia killer in Palermo who crosses paths with a young woman blind since birth. They then came back with an astonishing, dark fairy tale called Sicilian ghost story (+see also:
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trailer
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In the current film they also draw inspiration from a recent news report, the years in which the powerful boss of the Cosa Nostra, Matteo Messina Denaro – who was only arrested in January 2023 at a private clinic where he was being treated – has been on the run ever since. Sicilian letters delves into the paranoid dimension of this forced life in hiding, from which the criminal continued to exercise his power and give orders and instructions through pizza (pieces of paper folded multiple times to be delivered to his henchmen). But this time the directors explore the organic relationship between the mafia and the ruling class, or, to put it bluntly, the government that protected the bosses. Thanks to the performance of the high-caliber lead actor Elio Germanwho is always willing to explore even the darkest souls in his work, the boss who hides in the apartment of a blackmailed woman (Barbara Bobulova) is shown to us in all his repressed cruelty, his fixations, his devotion to a past made up of inherited rites and rules and to a present full of suspicious caution aimed at retaining power. He is like a caged lion, moving through Luca Bigazzi’s claustrophobic photography, not least in the hallucinatory flashbacks in which the young Matteo takes on his father figure (who is also on the run).

Supporting Elio Germano is Toni Servillo (who star together for the first time) in the shoes of Catello, a teacher and politician who was once close to the boss’s father and who is approached by the secret service upon his release from prison and asked to cooperate in the arrest of his godson, Matteo, in exchange for permission to build an illegal hotel. The educated and resourceful Catello then enters into a long-distance conversation with the fugitive boss via long letters aimed at bringing the two together.

The investigation and the relationship between Servillo and his men are the least successful aspects of the film, despite the presence of the brilliant Fausto Russo-Alessi (Tommaso Ragno And Antonia Truppo also a leading role in the film’s excellent cast). The relationship that develops between Catello and the female detective (Daniela Marra) feels particularly ill-conceived and jarring. Given the vast amount of fiction and nonfiction available, the equally vast filmography on the subject, the millions of pages of criminal investigations and inquiries, and the thousands of hours of wiretaps, it is perfectly normal to want to diminish the clarity and compactness of the story, especially if you are Sicilian and you “feel” the wounds that your region has suffered more than others. But the film’s black comedy opens too many cracks in this investigative film and the audience runs the risk of losing its way.

Sicilian letters is an Italian-French coproduction by Indigo Films together with RAI Cinema and Les Films du Losange. International sales revert to Les Films du Losange.

(translated from Italian)