The young actors were pretty good, but I think the pacing of the drama let it down, and there seemed to be confusion about how magical to let the magical realism become.
25 Reviews
SICILIAN GHOST ROMEO & JULIET
MadamWarden11 November 2020
A real life horror turned into dreamlike fantasy
vampire_hounddog29 July 2020
In a small Sicialian town, Luna (Julia Jedlikowska), a teenage schoolgirl is infatuated with one of her classmates, Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez). After he disappears she experiences visions that suggest that he is in danger, but her concerns are met with silence from the local community. Only a handful of friends join her in the search. She attempts to use her visions to trace him.
The film is based off the real life kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo in 1993 who was kidnapped by the Mafia to silence his father. He was held for over 700 days before he was murdered. The film drifts between fantasy and reality, often disarming the viewer. A genuinely haunting film, especially at the film's conclusion it has a dreamlike aesthetic to it.
The film is based off the real life kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo in 1993 who was kidnapped by the Mafia to silence his father. He was held for over 700 days before he was murdered. The film drifts between fantasy and reality, often disarming the viewer. A genuinely haunting film, especially at the film's conclusion it has a dreamlike aesthetic to it.
Lyrical fairy tale inspired by a true incident
gortx17 December 2018
The title is a bit of a misnomer, as SICILIAN GHOST STORY is a lyrical drama Co-Directed and Co-Written by the team of Fabio Grassandonia and Antonio Piazza. Inspired by the true story of the disappearance of a teenage boy in 1993, the movie isn't a documentation of the case as much as it takes off from the memories of that incident. Grassandonia and Piazza transform those memories into a Romeo & Juliet style fable, even though the lovers here kiss but once.
Luna (Julia Jedikowska) and Giussppe (Gaetano Fernandez) have no sooner come together when they are violently thrust apart (needless to say, a certain Sicilian organized crime group is involved). The Directors take a while to build to what they are aiming for. The actors are good with Jedikowska being particularly winsome and determined. Once the movie's phantasmagorical aspects come to the fore, the second half gains its footing. The Directors were fortunate to pair up with a couple of master Director Paolo Sorrentino's (THE GREAT BEAUTY, YOUTH) collaborators in Critiano Travaglioli (editing) and Luca Bigazzi (cinematography) and they assist immeasurably in fulfilling their vision. The locations are well-chosen, including the key Agrigento ruins.
While not the horror film the title promises, SICILIAN GHOST STORY is an engrossing tale of its own. It very much plays like the kind of legend the island locales might tell years from now. The one about the girl who loved too much.
A haunting Mafia tale
imursel10 September 2018
Extraordinary filmmaking of the highest calibre
Bertaut14 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Sicilian Ghost Story is cinema as art, in the purest sense of the term. Extraordinary aesthetic beauty and not a small amount of technical virtuosity contain a narrative that is emotionally devastating, but also paradoxically uplifting.
As the lights came up at the screening I attended, I sat in a kind of stupefied silence, staring at the credits rolling on the screen, too flummoxed to really move. On an unconscious level, I was trying to process the wave of emotions sweeping over me, trying to qualify and characterise what I was feeling, and by so during, drag it from the unconscious into consciousness. There, I'd have a better chance of understanding why the film had had such a profound effect on me, why it had burrowed under my skin so completely. Then, suddenly, I realised I was employing completely the wrong interpretative strategy; I was trying to analyse the film on an ontological level which, for the most part, it doesn't exist. I was looking at it from an intellectual point of view, when the film operates almost wholly on an emotional plane. And with that realisation came another; to fully engage with the film critically, one must allow oneself to become emotionally involved rather than remain intellectually detached (a reverse Verfremdungseffekt, if you will). And there's a very specific content-driven reason why the film operates on the emotional rather than the intellectual level, which we'll look at in a moment, and which speaks to just how accomplished a piece of work this is.
Beginning in 1993, Sicilian Ghost Story tells the story of Luna (an extraordinary debut performance by Julia Jedlikowska, who carries the entire film) and Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez), two thirteen-year-olds living in Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily. Both come from difficult domestic situations, and are slowly awakening to the fact that they seem to be falling in love. Giuseppe is the son of a Cosa Nostra hitman who has recently turned state's witness in prison, whilst every aspect of Luna's home life is controlled by her domineering mother (Sabine Timoteo), although she has a good relationship with her diminutive father (Vincenzo Amato). Everything is relatively normal in their lives until Giuseppe disappears. Deeply upset, Luna is incredulous at the community's lack of reaction - nobody seems to either care or want to do anything to try to find Giuseppe. With this in mind, Luna determines to find him herself, quickly realising that the two share a kind of psychic connection, upon which she must rely if she is ever to see him again.
The film is adapted from Marco Mancassola's short-story "Un cavaliere bianco" in his 2011 book, Non saremo confusi per sempre. The story is about the murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo, son of Santino Di Matteo (known as Mezzanasca), a hitman for the Cosa Nostra. In 1992, Mezzanasca took part in the murder of Giovanni Falcone, a judge working to break the power of the Mafia in Sicily. The following year, he was arrested, and soon turned pentito, i.e. he became an informer. In retaliation, the Mafia kidnapped his eleven-year-old son, Giuseppe. The plan was to use Giuseppe to silence Mezzanasca, torturing him, and sending pictures to his father demanding that he recant his testimony. However, Mezzanasca refused to cooperate, and continued to work with the police. After 779 days of imprisonment, Giuseppe was strangled to death, and his body subsequently dissolved in a vat of acid so as to prevent it being discovered and examined for evidence, also forcing the family to stage a funeral without a body, a practice known as lupara bianca. As in the film, Mancassola uses the real-life events as the starting-point for an otherworldly, fantastical narrative which follows Luna's increasingly non-corporeal attempts to find Giuseppe.
The murder of Giuseppe was the culmination of a wave of Mafia violence in Sicily throughout the 80s and into the 90s. Co-writers/co-directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza were themselves so disturbed by the case that they left Sicily altogether. Many years later, they became interested in telling Giuseppe's story. However, as the real-life events offered no catharsis or redemption, no justice, and ended with a child being dissolved in acid, they were unsure how best to approach the material. It was only after they read "Un cavaliere bianco" that they decided to turn the case into a dark fable, and focus not on Giuseppe (the ghost of the title), but on the fictional Luna. Speaking to Jack Rear at verdict, Piazza states, "It's a story of pure horror with no possible hope or redemption for anybody. But we made the film as an act of love for this stolen, forgotten child."
With this in mind, Sicilian Ghost Story is a fantasy-based love story first, and a fact-based tale of violence and murder second. Indeed, it could just as legitimately called be Sicilian Love Story. Poetic and magical in equal measure, although it spends a great deal of time within Luna's imagination/unconscious, it remains grounded in the Cosa Nostra-dominated Sicilian culture of the early 90s. Because of this duality, although the film tells an undeniably dark story, Pizza and Grassadonia were able to craft a paradoxically uplifting dénouement, which doesn't feel even remotely out of place or artificially grafted on.
The duality also works on the level at which the audience receives the film - the focus on Luna's unconscious, on her dreams, on her psychic link with Giuseppe, provides a buffer for the audience, softening the impact of the real-life Giuseppe's horrific death whilst still respecting the events, albeit from within the frame of a fantasy-based narrative. Speaking to Charles Tesson during Semaine de la Critique at Cannes, Piazza and Grassadonia state, "The only way to tell the story was for us to create a collision between a level of reality and a level of fantasy. On the level of reality, a dark fable. On the level of fantasy, a romantic fable."
This may seem distasteful to some, as the film posits that love is able to transcend violence, and, ultimately, give freedom to the soul, but the directors state, "At the end, another reality is revealed, one which surpasses dreams and nightmares, a reality in which ghosts reveal their true nature, their very solid and indestructible reality as souls." Obviously, this aspect of the story has no correlation with the horrific real-life events. However, Pizza and Grassadonia argue that they are essentially resurrecting the real Giuseppe, insofar as the story is not especially well known, even in Sicily itself.
In terms of the content, as I have already mentioned, the film exists on an emotional level rather than an intellectual one, and the audience will get the most from it if they allow themselves to engage with it on that same emotional level. This is tied into how Piazza and Grassadonia wanted to honour the real Giuseppe, but rather than presenting a fact-based intellectual film, they instead made an emotion-based fairy-tale. That the film operates on this emotional level is tied into its very DNA.
As to my experience, I became aware I was watching something extraordinary in the opening scene. Inside a cave, the camera travels over dark rocks. A weak light emanates from the mouth of the cave, and reflects off the droplets of water on the rocks. As the camera moves, and the screen fills with a black background permeated by soft white spots, one could be looking at an expansive star field rather than being confined inside a cave, a shot which recalls the scene on the driving range in Michael Mann's The Insider (1999), which has a similarly disorientating effect (although used by the director for a very different end).
As the film continued, it became increasingly obvious to me that the form and content are so intrinsically bound together that it's difficult to tell which is generating which. For example, the music (which is non-diegetic, and therefore form) bleeds into the foley (which is diegetic, and therefore content). But does the foley give rise to the music or does the music give rise to the foley?
The filmmakers also employ a litany of techniques to link, contrast, and compare various scenes. Animal imagery appears throughout; an owl in the opening shot is seen multiple times over the course of the rest of the film, and also highlighted are butterflies, a stout, a dog, spiders, and, especially, horses. On a more technical level, Pizza and Grassadonia's visual trickery is exceptionally accomplished, and they employ it perfectly, always justified by the content; fisheye lenses, Dutch angels, asymmetrical framing, chiaroscuro lighting, soft focus, forced perspective, etc.
As I was musing on what I would talk about in this review, I realised that most of the reasons I loved the film so much will be the exact same reasons that a lot of people hate it - the narrative ambiguity, the only-ever-hinted-at possibility of something ethereal living in the forest, the slightly confusing achronological structure, the camera trickery, the slow pacing, the bleak morality, the non-diegetic light sources, the naturalistic acting, the symbolism and visual metaphors, the use of a real-life murder as the subject for an oneiric romance dealing with first love, the (at times) oppressive music, the tacit disregard for genre, the two scenes where the narrative progression simply stops completely and there are two four-or-five-minute sequences that don't advance the plot in any way, but which are achingly beautiful, and central to the film's overriding theme - that love can transcend all.
This is cinema as art. Point of fact, it's nothing less than a masterpiece.
As the lights came up at the screening I attended, I sat in a kind of stupefied silence, staring at the credits rolling on the screen, too flummoxed to really move. On an unconscious level, I was trying to process the wave of emotions sweeping over me, trying to qualify and characterise what I was feeling, and by so during, drag it from the unconscious into consciousness. There, I'd have a better chance of understanding why the film had had such a profound effect on me, why it had burrowed under my skin so completely. Then, suddenly, I realised I was employing completely the wrong interpretative strategy; I was trying to analyse the film on an ontological level which, for the most part, it doesn't exist. I was looking at it from an intellectual point of view, when the film operates almost wholly on an emotional plane. And with that realisation came another; to fully engage with the film critically, one must allow oneself to become emotionally involved rather than remain intellectually detached (a reverse Verfremdungseffekt, if you will). And there's a very specific content-driven reason why the film operates on the emotional rather than the intellectual level, which we'll look at in a moment, and which speaks to just how accomplished a piece of work this is.
Beginning in 1993, Sicilian Ghost Story tells the story of Luna (an extraordinary debut performance by Julia Jedlikowska, who carries the entire film) and Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez), two thirteen-year-olds living in Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily. Both come from difficult domestic situations, and are slowly awakening to the fact that they seem to be falling in love. Giuseppe is the son of a Cosa Nostra hitman who has recently turned state's witness in prison, whilst every aspect of Luna's home life is controlled by her domineering mother (Sabine Timoteo), although she has a good relationship with her diminutive father (Vincenzo Amato). Everything is relatively normal in their lives until Giuseppe disappears. Deeply upset, Luna is incredulous at the community's lack of reaction - nobody seems to either care or want to do anything to try to find Giuseppe. With this in mind, Luna determines to find him herself, quickly realising that the two share a kind of psychic connection, upon which she must rely if she is ever to see him again.
The film is adapted from Marco Mancassola's short-story "Un cavaliere bianco" in his 2011 book, Non saremo confusi per sempre. The story is about the murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo, son of Santino Di Matteo (known as Mezzanasca), a hitman for the Cosa Nostra. In 1992, Mezzanasca took part in the murder of Giovanni Falcone, a judge working to break the power of the Mafia in Sicily. The following year, he was arrested, and soon turned pentito, i.e. he became an informer. In retaliation, the Mafia kidnapped his eleven-year-old son, Giuseppe. The plan was to use Giuseppe to silence Mezzanasca, torturing him, and sending pictures to his father demanding that he recant his testimony. However, Mezzanasca refused to cooperate, and continued to work with the police. After 779 days of imprisonment, Giuseppe was strangled to death, and his body subsequently dissolved in a vat of acid so as to prevent it being discovered and examined for evidence, also forcing the family to stage a funeral without a body, a practice known as lupara bianca. As in the film, Mancassola uses the real-life events as the starting-point for an otherworldly, fantastical narrative which follows Luna's increasingly non-corporeal attempts to find Giuseppe.
The murder of Giuseppe was the culmination of a wave of Mafia violence in Sicily throughout the 80s and into the 90s. Co-writers/co-directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza were themselves so disturbed by the case that they left Sicily altogether. Many years later, they became interested in telling Giuseppe's story. However, as the real-life events offered no catharsis or redemption, no justice, and ended with a child being dissolved in acid, they were unsure how best to approach the material. It was only after they read "Un cavaliere bianco" that they decided to turn the case into a dark fable, and focus not on Giuseppe (the ghost of the title), but on the fictional Luna. Speaking to Jack Rear at verdict, Piazza states, "It's a story of pure horror with no possible hope or redemption for anybody. But we made the film as an act of love for this stolen, forgotten child."
With this in mind, Sicilian Ghost Story is a fantasy-based love story first, and a fact-based tale of violence and murder second. Indeed, it could just as legitimately called be Sicilian Love Story. Poetic and magical in equal measure, although it spends a great deal of time within Luna's imagination/unconscious, it remains grounded in the Cosa Nostra-dominated Sicilian culture of the early 90s. Because of this duality, although the film tells an undeniably dark story, Pizza and Grassadonia were able to craft a paradoxically uplifting dénouement, which doesn't feel even remotely out of place or artificially grafted on.
The duality also works on the level at which the audience receives the film - the focus on Luna's unconscious, on her dreams, on her psychic link with Giuseppe, provides a buffer for the audience, softening the impact of the real-life Giuseppe's horrific death whilst still respecting the events, albeit from within the frame of a fantasy-based narrative. Speaking to Charles Tesson during Semaine de la Critique at Cannes, Piazza and Grassadonia state, "The only way to tell the story was for us to create a collision between a level of reality and a level of fantasy. On the level of reality, a dark fable. On the level of fantasy, a romantic fable."
This may seem distasteful to some, as the film posits that love is able to transcend violence, and, ultimately, give freedom to the soul, but the directors state, "At the end, another reality is revealed, one which surpasses dreams and nightmares, a reality in which ghosts reveal their true nature, their very solid and indestructible reality as souls." Obviously, this aspect of the story has no correlation with the horrific real-life events. However, Pizza and Grassadonia argue that they are essentially resurrecting the real Giuseppe, insofar as the story is not especially well known, even in Sicily itself.
In terms of the content, as I have already mentioned, the film exists on an emotional level rather than an intellectual one, and the audience will get the most from it if they allow themselves to engage with it on that same emotional level. This is tied into how Piazza and Grassadonia wanted to honour the real Giuseppe, but rather than presenting a fact-based intellectual film, they instead made an emotion-based fairy-tale. That the film operates on this emotional level is tied into its very DNA.
As to my experience, I became aware I was watching something extraordinary in the opening scene. Inside a cave, the camera travels over dark rocks. A weak light emanates from the mouth of the cave, and reflects off the droplets of water on the rocks. As the camera moves, and the screen fills with a black background permeated by soft white spots, one could be looking at an expansive star field rather than being confined inside a cave, a shot which recalls the scene on the driving range in Michael Mann's The Insider (1999), which has a similarly disorientating effect (although used by the director for a very different end).
As the film continued, it became increasingly obvious to me that the form and content are so intrinsically bound together that it's difficult to tell which is generating which. For example, the music (which is non-diegetic, and therefore form) bleeds into the foley (which is diegetic, and therefore content). But does the foley give rise to the music or does the music give rise to the foley?
The filmmakers also employ a litany of techniques to link, contrast, and compare various scenes. Animal imagery appears throughout; an owl in the opening shot is seen multiple times over the course of the rest of the film, and also highlighted are butterflies, a stout, a dog, spiders, and, especially, horses. On a more technical level, Pizza and Grassadonia's visual trickery is exceptionally accomplished, and they employ it perfectly, always justified by the content; fisheye lenses, Dutch angels, asymmetrical framing, chiaroscuro lighting, soft focus, forced perspective, etc.
As I was musing on what I would talk about in this review, I realised that most of the reasons I loved the film so much will be the exact same reasons that a lot of people hate it - the narrative ambiguity, the only-ever-hinted-at possibility of something ethereal living in the forest, the slightly confusing achronological structure, the camera trickery, the slow pacing, the bleak morality, the non-diegetic light sources, the naturalistic acting, the symbolism and visual metaphors, the use of a real-life murder as the subject for an oneiric romance dealing with first love, the (at times) oppressive music, the tacit disregard for genre, the two scenes where the narrative progression simply stops completely and there are two four-or-five-minute sequences that don't advance the plot in any way, but which are achingly beautiful, and central to the film's overriding theme - that love can transcend all.
This is cinema as art. Point of fact, it's nothing less than a masterpiece.
Remember Giuseppe Di Matteo.
S_Soma8 July 2019
Warning: Spoilers
I'm a bit all over the place with respect to SICILIAN GHOST STORY. It's undeniably well-made and the cinematography is nothing less than gorgeous. Stylistically, it's difficult to find anything badly done in the entire picture.
So, being careful to completely step outside of myself and view the movie with the art-centric eyes of a movie critic, SICILIAN GHOST STORY is definitely an A+.
However, contemplating the movie as the human being that I am in my entirety, I find it thoroughly repugnant and the mentality of its creators in making it utterly incomprehensible. My reaction to the movie is so thoroughly negative I can't help but suspect there are cultural sensibilities at play in the hearts and minds of SICILIAN GHOST STORY's creators that place it outside of my ability to appreciate it.
SICILIAN GHOST STORY is an unexpected blend of a real-life Sicilian mob story of the most horrific kind uniquely mixed with significant fantasy elements possessed of ROMEO AND JULIET overtones.
The Sicilian mob elements, the foundational context in which the story takes place, are directly lifted from the real-life story of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 11-year-old son of Santo Di Matteo, one of the assassins of Italian judge Giovanni Falcone who, when captured by the Italian police, began cooperating with the Italian government prosecutors. The Mafia kidnapped Giuseppe, held him captive, periodically tortured him over the course of more than 2 years, and then finally strangled him to death. They then dissolved his body in acid to deny the Di Matteo family the opportunity to give the boy a decent burial. Particularly tragic is that, as far as I can tell, even if the Mafia's attempts to force Santo Di Matteo to retract his statements had been successful, his deposition was already binding and he could not have effectively retracted them even had he wished to. In other words, Santo Di Matteo really didn't have any way of mollifying his son's kidnappers. All the torture and death of Giuseppe was for nothing in that it never could have been successful.
Whatever horrific image, scene or situation that you can imagine, I have probably seen it depicted in some movie or other over the course of my life. For the most part, most of what happens in most movies is make-believe. Generally speaking, taking exception with the thematic content or subject matter of a movie is out of bounds for the purposes of critique. If you don't like movies about "X", then don't watch movies about "X". Watching a movie about something you intrinsically don't like means you're watching a movie that can't please you no matter how hard it tries. Turning around and critiquing such a movie just wastes everybody's time.
I can swallow most movies that contain subject matter I find personally repugnant by the simple expedient of remembering that they are ONLY movies and are merely depictions of imaginary things that never really happened. Something repugnant but nonexistent may need to be consumed for the purposes of getting to the higher expression of art or meaning within the movie.
These truths notwithstanding, for the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to make a movie such as SICILIAN GHOST STORY. Directors Fabio Grassadonnia and Antonio Piazza are unequivocally clear that the choices they made were deliberate, carefully selected and with apparently naught but good intentions. "It's a story of pure horror with no possible hope or redemption for anybody. But we made the film as an act of love for this stolen, forgotten child." Additionally, they were afraid "maybe the Italian audiences will think 'oh no, it's another Mafia story about a terrible event which happened in Sicily.' We don't want to watch it."
To make the Giuseppe Di Matteo tragedy more palatable, the directors blended in fantasy sequences where Giuseppe experiences romance and affection from a girl, Luna, with whom he had a budding romance at the time of his kidnapping. The bulk of the movie is, in fact, from the perspective of Luna and her fantasy sequences. Giuseppe himself is in fact a secondary character.
So what I get from this is they co-opted the horrific, short, staggeringly tortured life of a poor child, sugarcoated it with make-believe happiness and love-conquers-all BS in order to get people to watch their movie. They made a movie where, as you watch it, you KNOW that every heartbreaking, horrific thing you see REALLY DID happen to this poor kid and every GOOD thing, every imagined escape to love and hope, NEVER happened. Does somebody think that PRETENDING about mitigating circumstances in the face of real-life horror, against the actions of real-life monsters, accomplishes something worthwhile?
The only thing, the ONLY thing, that accomplishes ANYTHING even slightly worthwhile in the face of genuine monstrosity is punishing the guilty and disintegrating the constructs that made it possible which, in this case, would be the Sicilian mob.
"Uplifting" feelings derived from fantasizing happy endings in the face of REAL suffering is just self-delusion of an unforgivable kind. And it does REAL disservice to those who suffered. It serves to detract from their misery in the minds of the public.
A movie that depicted the harsh and un-glamorized reality of what actually happened to Giuseppe would be painful to watch but would at least have the redeemable virtue of crystallizing in the public's mind the actual dimensions of what this poor kid actually suffered. Sicilians are clearly still romantically intrigued by the Mafia monsters in their midst and need something harsh shoved down their throats to encourage them to join the human race. A revolting dose of un-alloyed reality might help them finally repudiate "our thing".
Clearly I don't get this movie at all and I REALLY don't get moviemakers who would deliberately choose to distort and pretty up the stunning tragedy of Giuseppe Di Matteo's short and tragic life to get people to watch their movie. That reviewers would actually APPLAUD this sort of thought process is a complete mystery to me.
So, being careful to completely step outside of myself and view the movie with the art-centric eyes of a movie critic, SICILIAN GHOST STORY is definitely an A+.
However, contemplating the movie as the human being that I am in my entirety, I find it thoroughly repugnant and the mentality of its creators in making it utterly incomprehensible. My reaction to the movie is so thoroughly negative I can't help but suspect there are cultural sensibilities at play in the hearts and minds of SICILIAN GHOST STORY's creators that place it outside of my ability to appreciate it.
SICILIAN GHOST STORY is an unexpected blend of a real-life Sicilian mob story of the most horrific kind uniquely mixed with significant fantasy elements possessed of ROMEO AND JULIET overtones.
The Sicilian mob elements, the foundational context in which the story takes place, are directly lifted from the real-life story of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 11-year-old son of Santo Di Matteo, one of the assassins of Italian judge Giovanni Falcone who, when captured by the Italian police, began cooperating with the Italian government prosecutors. The Mafia kidnapped Giuseppe, held him captive, periodically tortured him over the course of more than 2 years, and then finally strangled him to death. They then dissolved his body in acid to deny the Di Matteo family the opportunity to give the boy a decent burial. Particularly tragic is that, as far as I can tell, even if the Mafia's attempts to force Santo Di Matteo to retract his statements had been successful, his deposition was already binding and he could not have effectively retracted them even had he wished to. In other words, Santo Di Matteo really didn't have any way of mollifying his son's kidnappers. All the torture and death of Giuseppe was for nothing in that it never could have been successful.
Whatever horrific image, scene or situation that you can imagine, I have probably seen it depicted in some movie or other over the course of my life. For the most part, most of what happens in most movies is make-believe. Generally speaking, taking exception with the thematic content or subject matter of a movie is out of bounds for the purposes of critique. If you don't like movies about "X", then don't watch movies about "X". Watching a movie about something you intrinsically don't like means you're watching a movie that can't please you no matter how hard it tries. Turning around and critiquing such a movie just wastes everybody's time.
I can swallow most movies that contain subject matter I find personally repugnant by the simple expedient of remembering that they are ONLY movies and are merely depictions of imaginary things that never really happened. Something repugnant but nonexistent may need to be consumed for the purposes of getting to the higher expression of art or meaning within the movie.
These truths notwithstanding, for the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to make a movie such as SICILIAN GHOST STORY. Directors Fabio Grassadonnia and Antonio Piazza are unequivocally clear that the choices they made were deliberate, carefully selected and with apparently naught but good intentions. "It's a story of pure horror with no possible hope or redemption for anybody. But we made the film as an act of love for this stolen, forgotten child." Additionally, they were afraid "maybe the Italian audiences will think 'oh no, it's another Mafia story about a terrible event which happened in Sicily.' We don't want to watch it."
To make the Giuseppe Di Matteo tragedy more palatable, the directors blended in fantasy sequences where Giuseppe experiences romance and affection from a girl, Luna, with whom he had a budding romance at the time of his kidnapping. The bulk of the movie is, in fact, from the perspective of Luna and her fantasy sequences. Giuseppe himself is in fact a secondary character.
So what I get from this is they co-opted the horrific, short, staggeringly tortured life of a poor child, sugarcoated it with make-believe happiness and love-conquers-all BS in order to get people to watch their movie. They made a movie where, as you watch it, you KNOW that every heartbreaking, horrific thing you see REALLY DID happen to this poor kid and every GOOD thing, every imagined escape to love and hope, NEVER happened. Does somebody think that PRETENDING about mitigating circumstances in the face of real-life horror, against the actions of real-life monsters, accomplishes something worthwhile?
The only thing, the ONLY thing, that accomplishes ANYTHING even slightly worthwhile in the face of genuine monstrosity is punishing the guilty and disintegrating the constructs that made it possible which, in this case, would be the Sicilian mob.
"Uplifting" feelings derived from fantasizing happy endings in the face of REAL suffering is just self-delusion of an unforgivable kind. And it does REAL disservice to those who suffered. It serves to detract from their misery in the minds of the public.
A movie that depicted the harsh and un-glamorized reality of what actually happened to Giuseppe would be painful to watch but would at least have the redeemable virtue of crystallizing in the public's mind the actual dimensions of what this poor kid actually suffered. Sicilians are clearly still romantically intrigued by the Mafia monsters in their midst and need something harsh shoved down their throats to encourage them to join the human race. A revolting dose of un-alloyed reality might help them finally repudiate "our thing".
Clearly I don't get this movie at all and I REALLY don't get moviemakers who would deliberately choose to distort and pretty up the stunning tragedy of Giuseppe Di Matteo's short and tragic life to get people to watch their movie. That reviewers would actually APPLAUD this sort of thought process is a complete mystery to me.
Magnifico!
faridtoloui25 October 2017
This movie reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth. Few films show children trying to cope with the loss of a loved one, it was interesting to see how they differ from adults. The cinematography and acting were top notch. I am obsessed with the song "Stay With Me" from the soundtrack by Soap&Skin. The movie stays with you long after the credits have finished rolling.
Miserable Film
albertherbert5 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
A bland, overly long interpretation of the 1993 Di Matteo abduction with supposed 'mystical elements' which just turn out to be the convoluted imagination of the bunny-boiler want-to-be girlfriend of the abductee.
If you want to see an excellent film about a young girl using fantasy and imagination to cope with a terrible situation, go watch Pan's Labyrinth.
Or if you enjoy watching children eat rat poison, be beaten, garroted and ultimately melted with acid, this is the film for you.
If you want to see an excellent film about a young girl using fantasy and imagination to cope with a terrible situation, go watch Pan's Labyrinth.
Or if you enjoy watching children eat rat poison, be beaten, garroted and ultimately melted with acid, this is the film for you.
A Powerful Tale Of Love Conquering Fear And Indifference.
Pairic7 August 2018
Sicilian Ghost Story: A tale of young love, kidnapping and horror; a new take on the "Mafia Film" set in a Sicilian town. Luna (Julia Jedlikowska) is in love withe 13 year old classmate Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez), they teasingly play in the forest, when a dog threatens Luna he protects her, losing his schoolbag. When Giuseppe disappears Luna is forlorn, thinking he just abandoned her but it is soon revealed that he was kidnapped by the Mafia as his father, also a mafiosi is cooperating with the authorities.
Locals do not want to discuss it and there is a consensual myth even at the school that the boy is ill. Luna won't stop looking for him, even producing leaflets about his disappearance. Her parents fear that this will draw the attention of the gangsters and the town police don't want to be reminded of the reality.
Much more than a gangster film this tale develops as Luna seems to forge a psychic bond with Giuseppe, seeing him in captivity, viewing where he will be moved to. Giuseppe is also aware of that link and undergoes out of body experiences as he falls ill whilst in captivity. As the film progresses the supernatural elements build towards to a climax which threatens to provide a Romeo and Juliet ending.
Some terrible scenes of cruelty, violence and horror. In the forest sequences there is a sense of primeval panic as the sparse trees seem to close in looking like bars in a prison cell. Great performances by Julia and Gaetano. Written and directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza this is truly a powerful tale of love conquering fear and indifference. 9/10.
Locals do not want to discuss it and there is a consensual myth even at the school that the boy is ill. Luna won't stop looking for him, even producing leaflets about his disappearance. Her parents fear that this will draw the attention of the gangsters and the town police don't want to be reminded of the reality.
Much more than a gangster film this tale develops as Luna seems to forge a psychic bond with Giuseppe, seeing him in captivity, viewing where he will be moved to. Giuseppe is also aware of that link and undergoes out of body experiences as he falls ill whilst in captivity. As the film progresses the supernatural elements build towards to a climax which threatens to provide a Romeo and Juliet ending.
Some terrible scenes of cruelty, violence and horror. In the forest sequences there is a sense of primeval panic as the sparse trees seem to close in looking like bars in a prison cell. Great performances by Julia and Gaetano. Written and directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza this is truly a powerful tale of love conquering fear and indifference. 9/10.
an hommage
Kirpianuscus13 September 2018
Poetic, bitter, mixing fairy tale atmosphere and slices of captivity, using the eyes of young actors, the gestures of adults, the map of teenager world as lead ingredients of a touchinng, impressive film about a victim and about a love story and about Mafia. A film giving not exactly a pledge or a portrait of crime. But wise picture of fall. About cruelty , about vulnerability, about silence, about dreams. Nothing new. But useful. Maybe, for the right manner to say a profound dark truth.
Arghhhh. This movie is NUTSO! AWFUL!
tandc-5381018 July 2019
Do you like kid napping, torture, and child abuse with your love story? Here you go. The producers think they're Ingmar Bergman, but they're NOT. Settle down here for confusion, frustration, boredom, and plain old angst as you try to watch this mess. If I want to see the Mafia misbehaving i'd Rather see 9 hours of the GODFATHER trilogy. Trust me and Skip this awful flick.
In search of ...
kosmasp15 January 2018
A slow pacing story, that some have connected to other movies that are very spiritual and have class. This one really tells a great story with a lot of suspense. And I'm not going into it, because while it isn't really a lot of story going on, it is the subtext. But also the coming of age part of it. It is the mystery, it is the youthfulness, it is the fantasy aspect of it.
Don't expect this to be horror though. If that is what you want to watch, there are other movies for you out there. This one is fantastical and a movie that might feel like it's dragging for people who may not have the patience to watch something that does not have flashy scenes and multiple cuts and a really faster story. It does do a great job and while you probably can see where this is going, it still has a lot of interesting ideas to keep you interested. Even a small "cheat" can be forgiven, because the vibe the movie sends out, is not just being real or reality
Don't expect this to be horror though. If that is what you want to watch, there are other movies for you out there. This one is fantastical and a movie that might feel like it's dragging for people who may not have the patience to watch something that does not have flashy scenes and multiple cuts and a really faster story. It does do a great job and while you probably can see where this is going, it still has a lot of interesting ideas to keep you interested. Even a small "cheat" can be forgiven, because the vibe the movie sends out, is not just being real or reality
TEDIOUS, SHALLOW
ilariaarciola22 December 2018
Actors are robotic, the kids are sheltered and stupid, their relationships are shallow and fake.
Most of the scenes are all in black, in attempt to give some kind of mystery/depth to the movie that is not there. So boring and little dialogue. I expected so much more. I give 2 only because I love Sicily and some random cool shots of nature
A mesmerizing love story
alrikdaldrup15 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Looking through the program of the Fantasy Film Festival 2017, Sicilian Ghost Story by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza was the film sounding most promising and - to be honest, if you liked the trailer, you will like the movie too. Here, you get exactly what you expect. The story is a classic Romeo and Julia tragedy but with a gloomy thriller element. Luna loves her horse-riding classmate Giuseppe, a golden boy, although their families share a mutual hate. Their love is star-crossed: Giuseppe's dad works as a 'grass' and one day the Mafia kidnaps his son to put him to silence. While everyone abandons him, Luna, evidently sharing some character traits with Shakespeare's Juliet, will go above her limits to save him.
The bond between Luna and Giuseppe is the strongest emotional connection in the film especially in contrast to the other characters (Luna and her parents, Giuseppe's parents, the abductors) – highlighted by the fact that the only actual scene in which we see them together is the opening scene. Their love for each other, which is ready to defy evil forces, develops an incredible attraction force. When Giuseppe realizes through the letter by Luna that he must survive this because there is still a shining light of hope in his dead-end situation, the film affects you directly at your open heart, and due to the thriller story, it never gets cheesy. This one is a prime example for an extraordinary outstanding sequence which would even deserve 10 pts.
Mythological references and allusions to myriad European myths and fairy tales play a role in the imagined world Luna creates in which she is still able to rescue Giuseppe. A better world that seems to lie under the saturnine reality, where there is still something worth living for. Other symbols like the lake, the dark forest or the owl (a direct reference to Ovid's passage on Progne and Tereus, I guess) intensify the strong bound between Luna and Giuseppe and connects the two teens. By playing a significant role in Lunas world of thought, these elements are kind of soothing in contrast to the sad reality and give the film a magical touch.
Obviously, the Shakespearian love story is the centerpiece of the film, but on the other hand it also revolves around a social theme which is too often shrouded in silence: The threat and power of the Mafia and the impact it has on a normal life. There is one special scene where Luna and her best friend Loredana spread papers saying: Giuseppe has disappeared and what are you doing about it? – this is a good question. Everyone knows that these inhuman, devastating crimes happen but they all seem to be oblivious about it or even don't care. How can a society simply accept that they are powerless? The film takes a subversive approach here. Despite the pretended ignorance in society and despite all obstacles, heroine Luna does not abandon Giuseppe. By this love story and its cosmic proportions, Grassadonia and Piazza create a monument for one of the fates of the innocent Mafia victims in Sicily which are still there like ghosts haunting the present (or not, because society is silent about it).
Grassadonia and Piazzathis and their cinematographer Luca Bigazzi tell the story in beautiful pictures reminding me of Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales. Every scene here could be taken out as a film still standing on its own looking like some impressionistic painting.
Beside the visual beauty and the richness of metaphors and symbols, the sound design is conspicuous too. The piano-based music score by Austrian musician Anton Spielmann and his wifes' band Soap&Skin is only sparely used throughout the film, but when it appears, it really pushes the film on an elevated level and significantly underlines the longing of Luna and Giuseppe to each other. Soap&Skin contributed two heart-touching songs to the film which capture the sound of love, while the creepy sound design – for example the water drops or the woofing of the dog, symbolizing the Mafia danger - foreshadows the ending.
I had some problems with those parts of the film which completely play in Luna's fantasy world. Lengthy dream sequences where Luna imagines that she rescues Giuseppe felt pointless and do not push the storyline forward. Some of them especially those near the end of the film were a bit redundant, even inscrutable but others may find pleasure in them too. I definitely don't. There is also a dialogue between Luna and Nino, a friend of Loredana, who explains in an almost Rousseauish way what kind of place Sicily could be without humans. This felt a bit sudden and misplaced at first glance, but in the logic of the film it makes sense: Under all this human pettiness is still a paradise-like island full of magic caves, lakes and animals where once the gods resided and love is still reachable. There is hope that these gods will return one day to stop the cruelty. And the final scene may give a glimpse at this!
All in all, there is much to discover in Sicilian Ghost Story. I highly recommend watching the film in a cinema on a big screen (if possible), so that the intensity of the love story between Luna and Giuseppe and the power of the films' visual language can take full effect. A cold Mafia abduction versus endless love, narrated in powerful mystic and cosmic visuals – this is the magical mixture Sicilian Ghost Story offers, although it has some lengths and gets tangled up in its own conceptions sometimes. Beside this, the film is probably the most interesting and ambitious entry of the Fantasy Film Festival 2017 and stays in your head a couple of days after you watched it.
8 pts.
The bond between Luna and Giuseppe is the strongest emotional connection in the film especially in contrast to the other characters (Luna and her parents, Giuseppe's parents, the abductors) – highlighted by the fact that the only actual scene in which we see them together is the opening scene. Their love for each other, which is ready to defy evil forces, develops an incredible attraction force. When Giuseppe realizes through the letter by Luna that he must survive this because there is still a shining light of hope in his dead-end situation, the film affects you directly at your open heart, and due to the thriller story, it never gets cheesy. This one is a prime example for an extraordinary outstanding sequence which would even deserve 10 pts.
Mythological references and allusions to myriad European myths and fairy tales play a role in the imagined world Luna creates in which she is still able to rescue Giuseppe. A better world that seems to lie under the saturnine reality, where there is still something worth living for. Other symbols like the lake, the dark forest or the owl (a direct reference to Ovid's passage on Progne and Tereus, I guess) intensify the strong bound between Luna and Giuseppe and connects the two teens. By playing a significant role in Lunas world of thought, these elements are kind of soothing in contrast to the sad reality and give the film a magical touch.
Obviously, the Shakespearian love story is the centerpiece of the film, but on the other hand it also revolves around a social theme which is too often shrouded in silence: The threat and power of the Mafia and the impact it has on a normal life. There is one special scene where Luna and her best friend Loredana spread papers saying: Giuseppe has disappeared and what are you doing about it? – this is a good question. Everyone knows that these inhuman, devastating crimes happen but they all seem to be oblivious about it or even don't care. How can a society simply accept that they are powerless? The film takes a subversive approach here. Despite the pretended ignorance in society and despite all obstacles, heroine Luna does not abandon Giuseppe. By this love story and its cosmic proportions, Grassadonia and Piazza create a monument for one of the fates of the innocent Mafia victims in Sicily which are still there like ghosts haunting the present (or not, because society is silent about it).
Grassadonia and Piazzathis and their cinematographer Luca Bigazzi tell the story in beautiful pictures reminding me of Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales. Every scene here could be taken out as a film still standing on its own looking like some impressionistic painting.
Beside the visual beauty and the richness of metaphors and symbols, the sound design is conspicuous too. The piano-based music score by Austrian musician Anton Spielmann and his wifes' band Soap&Skin is only sparely used throughout the film, but when it appears, it really pushes the film on an elevated level and significantly underlines the longing of Luna and Giuseppe to each other. Soap&Skin contributed two heart-touching songs to the film which capture the sound of love, while the creepy sound design – for example the water drops or the woofing of the dog, symbolizing the Mafia danger - foreshadows the ending.
I had some problems with those parts of the film which completely play in Luna's fantasy world. Lengthy dream sequences where Luna imagines that she rescues Giuseppe felt pointless and do not push the storyline forward. Some of them especially those near the end of the film were a bit redundant, even inscrutable but others may find pleasure in them too. I definitely don't. There is also a dialogue between Luna and Nino, a friend of Loredana, who explains in an almost Rousseauish way what kind of place Sicily could be without humans. This felt a bit sudden and misplaced at first glance, but in the logic of the film it makes sense: Under all this human pettiness is still a paradise-like island full of magic caves, lakes and animals where once the gods resided and love is still reachable. There is hope that these gods will return one day to stop the cruelty. And the final scene may give a glimpse at this!
All in all, there is much to discover in Sicilian Ghost Story. I highly recommend watching the film in a cinema on a big screen (if possible), so that the intensity of the love story between Luna and Giuseppe and the power of the films' visual language can take full effect. A cold Mafia abduction versus endless love, narrated in powerful mystic and cosmic visuals – this is the magical mixture Sicilian Ghost Story offers, although it has some lengths and gets tangled up in its own conceptions sometimes. Beside this, the film is probably the most interesting and ambitious entry of the Fantasy Film Festival 2017 and stays in your head a couple of days after you watched it.
8 pts.
Dark, Dark...
kenbond-5380522 July 2019
Having visited Sicily several times and traveled across it by train and automobile, I was disappointed at how little of it was portrayed in this movie . I found the title to be misleading as well. This wasn't a 'ghost' story; it was an in-human atrocity!
The film was so Dark most of the time, I could hardly see what I was supposed to be watching; subtitles were my only guide.
It is unfortunate that the Mafia has to be so vicious with their membership, but taking revenge with children is beyond the pale.
This movie was NOT entertaining, it was morbid; should not have been made!!!
Excellent Movie and Absolutely Captivating
rickyspanish-0617222 July 2019
Warning: Spoilers
This was great movie through and through. I watched this film a few days ago and I am still processing it in many ways. Some reviewers are upset by the lack of actual 'ghosts' which I don't understand. I guess some people have no imagination.
Boring and slow
celtic45118 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
What did I just watch? It was like they were trying to make this as slow and boring as possible. It starts off with an owl looking down at wet rocks. That should have told me of boring and meaningless film moments to come. A young girl is overly obsessed with a teen boy that no one else really seems to miss when he disappears. Then there is scene after scene of the kidnapped teen just laying in bed or looking at his "cell" wall. Then scene after scene of the girl thinking about him or staring at something non-important. Her mom seems to hate her own daughter but that goes nowhere so she comes off as a paper thin character. Then thank goodness the film ends with the teen boy dies and she tries to kill herself but recovers and ends up smiling at the ocean. What? Maybe you have to high on something to watch this, but I didn't get it. One of the worst films I have ever seen and mega boring.
Wonderful
don-816-67910420 July 2019
I just saw this last night and what a pleasant surprise! This is exactly how movies can be crafted to create art. It is never pretentious, it is never self-aware, it is not cynical, and it is not derivative. It is refreshing to see a film like this in an age of Marvel's commercial exploitation of violent filmmaking.
ghost story no, moving yes
johnarticolo31 July 2019
Not for those looking for fast action and thrills. moody and compelling story telling and acting. metaphorical as it dissolves into nothingness. this one crept up to me and really took hold. how a mere sliver of a real story can be powerfully brought to the screen.
Darkness Swallows Boy and Could Consume Girl
Blue-Grotto21 January 2019
A little owl calling in the night, the murmur of the wind as it moves through the forest and the light of the moon in the water. They communicate somehow; this boy who vanished without a trace and the girl, Luna, who gave her heart and refuses to forget him. As days turn into months, life in Luna's remote village returns to normal, but she does not. The same darkness that swallowed the boy could consume the girl.
Based on real life, Sicilian Ghost Story provides a vision of Italy at odds with a typical and simplistic glimpse of the country. Dreams become tangible and humans communicate in supernatural ways, among other abnormal things. The camera itself descends into water and characters are viewed at odd angles and in strange light. The opening of the film, glimmers of light and eerie ambient sounds in a cave combined with ghostly electronic tones, is especially good. It sets the stage for the unexpected, peculiar and dark story. While some scenes are awkward and slow moving the film is as fascinating and extraordinary as ancient Roman columns by the sea. Sicilian Ghost Story surfaced at Cannes in 2017 and is available in Netflix "saved jail."
Based on real life, Sicilian Ghost Story provides a vision of Italy at odds with a typical and simplistic glimpse of the country. Dreams become tangible and humans communicate in supernatural ways, among other abnormal things. The camera itself descends into water and characters are viewed at odd angles and in strange light. The opening of the film, glimmers of light and eerie ambient sounds in a cave combined with ghostly electronic tones, is especially good. It sets the stage for the unexpected, peculiar and dark story. While some scenes are awkward and slow moving the film is as fascinating and extraordinary as ancient Roman columns by the sea. Sicilian Ghost Story surfaced at Cannes in 2017 and is available in Netflix "saved jail."
No Ghosts
westsideschl14 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Two parts:
One is a fantasy tale made for the movie of a young girl in love with a young boy (about 11), and her rebellious battle w/family & community to find out what happened to him upon his disappearance.
Second is basing the storyline on a true 1990s event of a Sicilian Mafia member turning witness against the Mafia for a killing, and the subsequent abduction of his son (Giuseppe Di Matteo) and his imprisonment and, well, more.
Affecting story of love against inhuman indifference
stairways16 August 2022
This teenage love story has all the elements of the genre - mawkish charm, awkward behaviour, youthful anger and rebellion, idealism and humour. But against these usual forces is marshalled all the dark, wordless horror of the Cosa Nostra and its war against the individual conscience.
The result is a movie that is unexpectedly nuanced and moving though much of the territory it covers is familiar from other treatments. The genius of the piece is to have us always see through the teenagers' eyes, and indeed through their dreams. Whether live can prevail is what the movie asks; that we even suspect it might, against such overwhelming and cruel odds, is the message.
The result is a movie that is unexpectedly nuanced and moving though much of the territory it covers is familiar from other treatments. The genius of the piece is to have us always see through the teenagers' eyes, and indeed through their dreams. Whether live can prevail is what the movie asks; that we even suspect it might, against such overwhelming and cruel odds, is the message.
Not Your Ordinary Ghost Story Type
arsalankazemian15 March 2021
This movie is based on the real kidnapping of a young boy by the Mafia after his father becomes an informant of the police. It mainly follows the character of Giuseppe, who has been kidnapped, and his friend and lover Luna. The first half of the film felt very slow-based and you cannot be sure what direction the movie is taking. But the filmmakers tied the story really well in the second half.
I really liked how they used natural elements, light and darkness, and animals as well as dreams and nightmares to show the ordeal and sufferings of the two young main characters, Luna and Giuseppe, in a world of ignorance and indifference of the adults.
The movie is not an ordinary ghost story type, as the title might suggest, but uses a real Mafia-related event as its basis which is told in a unique way through the eyes of its young characters against the haunting yet beautiful Sicilian landscape.
I really liked how they used natural elements, light and darkness, and animals as well as dreams and nightmares to show the ordeal and sufferings of the two young main characters, Luna and Giuseppe, in a world of ignorance and indifference of the adults.
The movie is not an ordinary ghost story type, as the title might suggest, but uses a real Mafia-related event as its basis which is told in a unique way through the eyes of its young characters against the haunting yet beautiful Sicilian landscape.
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