Who would have thought that a film about the capture of one of Italy’s most infamous mafia bosses could be so slow and thoughtful? Iddu – The Last Godfatherdirected by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza and in theaters from 10 October, is not the classic film about the mafia that one expects. There are no shootouts, revenge or plot twists gangster moviebut a slow portrait of the human and moral decline of one of the most powerful bosses of Cosa Nostra. The film, presented at the Venice Film Festival, follows the events of Denaro’s fugitive history (Elio Germano)now old and ill, hidden in a still and sultry Sicily, and the family friend Catello Palumbo (Toni Servillo)a fallen politician. The Secret Services force Catello to engage in an intense exchange of letters with the fugitive, with the aim of framing him.
Denaro is no longer the fearsome boss of the past, but a ghost of what he was: weak, consumed by imprisonment, yet still convinced that he is invincible. Palumbo, on the other hand, represents the most rotten face of political power, corrupt and ruined, but too arrogant to recognize its failure.
The atmosphere of Iddu it is oppressive, thanks to Luca Bigazzi’s photography, which makes Sicily a character in its own right, a mythological and hostile place, made of ruins and dust. However, the film sometimes gets lost in a fragmented and introspective narrative, which often struggles to find its rhythm. The episodic editing and the epistolary sequences between Denaro and Palumbo are full of symbolism, but they weigh down the story, leading the viewer to get lost in long pauses and reflections.
Grassadonia and Piazza try to build a work that goes beyond a simple crime biopic, but the ambition to make the story a reflection on power and its decadence clashes with a narrative structure that is too weak. While on the one hand the film carefully avoids the clichés of the genre, on the other hand it enters risky territory: that of abstraction and slowness.
Despite the excellent performances of Germano and Servillo, Iddu fails to deliver on the promise of an engaging story. It is a film that talks about the end of an era, but fails to make us feel the weight of that twilight. Certainly, the idea behind Iddu is of great interest: a parable about corruption and the transience of power.
Source: Vanity Fair
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