When he took the stage to collect the David di Donatello for Best Director for Exterior Night, Mark Bellocchio he said the most important thing for him is to keep working and have the strength not to stop. “I hope I still have some time to do beautiful things”, he reiterated by raising the prize to heaven and keeping his word given, given that Kidnappedhis latest film presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, is a masterpiece of direction and writing like we haven’t seen in a long time. At the age of 83 Bellocchio, in fact, directs and packs a mammoth and very difficult film inspired by a true historical fact that had already attracted the attention of a bigwig like Steven Spielberg, who had thought in unsuspecting times of writing a film on the incredible story of Edgardo Mortarathe seven-year-old Jewish boy torn away from his family of origin in Bologna in 1858 to be raised as a Catholic at the court of the Pope King Pius IX. This absurd story of injustice, pettiness and pain is told by the direction of Bellocchio and outlined by the screenplay drawn up by the director himself and by Susanna Nicchiarelli with meticulous expertise and care, the result of a careful historical reconstruction and, above all, of a story that does not need big names to be brought to the fore because it is the looks, the small gestures and the micro-expressions that guide the viewer to ‘inside a tunnel of anguish and tension that incredibly holds up to the end.
Kidnappedmore than a historical drama, it is a thriller capable of questioning Christians on how blurred the boundary between faith and common sense is. Exactly as Silencethe wonderful film by Martin Scorsese which forced the viewer to ask questions about what religion represents and how much harm has been done to a lot of innocents in the name of it, so Kidnapped puts us in front of an authority, that of the Pope, who decides to destroy a family in the name of a baptism that little Edgardo never wanted. The skill of the little one Aeneas Sala, absolutely perfect in restoring the purity of an infant who is forced to give up the protection of his family overnight – the scene in which his mother, the great Barbara Ronchi, tries to hide it from the guards by tucking it under the folds of her dark skirt – to be told that everything she believed in up to that moment is wrong is the icing on the cake of a masterpiece that offers scenes of absolute aesthetic and scenographic power. Like the one in which Edgardo, at night, climbs the altar and removes the nails from the hands and feet of the crucified Christ, freeing him from the chains to allow him to leave: a scene that remotely follows a sequence of Marcellino bread and wine that directed by Bellocchio and the extraordinary photography of Francesco Di Giacomo make it even sinister.
All in Kidnapped returns the vertigo of an absolute power on the way out and the desperation of a family, the Mortaras, who will spend his whole life reuniting with Edgardo, clashing with the papal authority which, at the time, exercised control over almost the entire territory. The throne held on the shoulder on which the Pope is seated brilliantly interpreted by Paolo Pierobon, the choked tears of the father played by the very good Fausto Russo Alesi and the expressive power of a resolute and very courageous mother who has the face of Barbara Ronchi are nothing more than small pieces capable of restoring a mosaic of humanity and resistance from which everyone will emerge defeated: the power of the Pope, annihilated by the Savoy troops who conquered Rome in a spectacular scene that recalls the Garibaldi invasion in Ocelot of Visconti; the Mortaras, consumed by the impotence of not having been able to do anything to bring their son back under their wing, and Edgardo himself, a boy uprooted from his origins who will spend his life in the service of the Church but without a compass to help him navigate the world – the frame in which the adult Edgardo played by an incredible Leonardo Maltese is seized by a fit of blind rage that leads him to join the rioters to throw the Pope’s coffin into the Tiber is perhaps one of the most powerful of the entire film. And then there are Filippo Timi and Fabrizio Gifuni in two secondary but relevant roles thanks to their expressive power, there are the wonderful costumes of Sergio Ballo And Daria Calvelli, the scenography by Andrea Castorinathe music of Fabio Massimo Capogrossoand a Caravaggesque photograph that we hope will win everything winnable at the Davids and beyond.
At 83, Marco Bellocchio and his team have managed to develop a film very close to perfection which makes us very lucky to have it in our catalog, with the hope that the public will rush to see it en masse at the cinema because Kidnapped is perhaps one of the most beautiful Italian films ever released in the last ten years.
Kidnapped is a production IBC Movie And Kavac Film with Rai Cinema in co-production with Ad Vitam Production (France) and The Match Factory (Germany), and is produced by Beppe Caschetto and Simone Gattoni, co-produced with the participation of Canal +, Cine’ + and Br/Arte France Cinéma in association with Film-und Medienstiftung NRW with the support of Région Ile-de-France. The film enjoys the selective contribution of the MIC Ministry of Culture and the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region through the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission. The screenplay is by Marco Bellocchio and Susanna Nicchiarelli with the collaboration of Edoardo Albinati and Daniela Ceselliand the historical advice of Pina Totaro. The film is freely inspired by The Mortar case by Daniele Scalise, Mondadori editions.
Other Vanity Fair stories you may be interested in:
- Cannes Film Festival 2023: Italy tries with Bellocchio, Rohrwacher and Moretti
- Paolo Pierobon: “I’ve made a career”
- Marco Bellocchio, edgy, courageous, nonconformist
- Fabrizio Gifuni: «Art can save us in this moment of decadence and aggression»
To receive the other cover of Vanity Fair (and much more), subscribe to Vanity Weekend.
Source: Vanity Fair

I’m Susan Karen, a professional writer and editor at World Stock Market. I specialize in Entertainment news, writing stories that keep readers informed on all the latest developments in the industry. With over five years of experience in creating engaging content and copywriting for various media outlets, I have grown to become an invaluable asset to any team.