(1962)
4
Bruce Eder
Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso (1962) was a movie so far ahead of its era, that -- looking at it 45 years after its release -- it seems at times as though it had been made in a time warp. After all, who made comedies about the mob -- even the Sicilian mob -- in 1962? And in a neo-realist style, to boot? The basic plot is simple enough, about Nino (Alberto Sordi), a man of Sicilian birth who has made good in northern Italy as an auto plant foreman in Milan, who decides it's time for his wife and their two young children to meet his parents and family -- and also his friends from the little town in Sicily where he grew up, who also constitute "family." And gradually, as he falls back in with his boyhood companions and family acquaintances, Nino's blissful, "holy fool" approach to life brushes up against the harsher aspects of the social order in his Sicilian town -- he must take a long trip and then a short trip, spirited away one night to do a favor for the mob chieftain who controls his town and the surrounding area; a favor that is contingent upon his wartime experience using weapons. The movie is a quietly, subtly sly and knowing as its hero is naive and oblivious, and therein lies its center -- the disconnect between Nino's wide-eyed innocence, perfectly embodied by Sordi, and Lattuada's darkly, comically sinister vision, in which even a plate overflowing with fat-encrusted red meat takes on darkly threatening overtones. The black-and-white photography by Armando Nannuzzi only enhances the shadows and the humorously ominous, comical little touches that decorate Nino's Sicilian sojourn. Given an important section of the shooting that comes up late in the movie -- which we will not reveal here -- which was shot separately from the rest of the picture (and under near-siege conditions), there is some credit due, past that deserved by Lattuada, that will probably never be properly accorded. The movie was released in 1962 and barely seen in the United States, where distributors didn't have a clue about how to handle its dark humor -- before disappearing for 45 years, until its re-release in 2007.
releases for Mafioso on AllMovie
Mafioso (1962)
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Title/Studio |
Release Date |
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Mafioso [Criterion Collection]
Criterion
More
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March 18, 2008 |
