An Italian-French movie that was released in August 2014 overseas, and just made it over here this week...Probably the best movie I have seen this year, if you liked 'Gomorrah', this is in the exact same vein, with a much more personal, compartamentalized look at a branch of the Calabria Mafia, who have become Italy's top organized crime group.
The story is simply of three brothers in a small village/town in Calabria, where blood feuds and hatred go back decades. The crime takes place matter of factly, without glamour or dramatics, just a coldly efficient world. The characters are portrayed with real humanity, and nuances that take them past the typical Mafia archetypes. The music is perfect and the cinematography is just incredible, esp. the shots of the misty, cloudy little goat farm, with grim muddy roads and classic Italian architectures, the ruins of civilization. Where the families eat, pray, grief, and die, throughout their lives. There is one great shot tracking a drug shipment down the coast from Milan, that has tension, and an ominous beauty.
Love, family, fate, betrayal, violence, a world where there is no redemption, only regrets and violence, the themes are simple and the movie takes them deep into the uncomfortable and bleak depths of conscience.
The story is simply of three brothers in a small village/town in Calabria, where blood feuds and hatred go back decades. The crime takes place matter of factly, without glamour or dramatics, just a coldly efficient world. The characters are portrayed with real humanity, and nuances that take them past the typical Mafia archetypes. The music is perfect and the cinematography is just incredible, esp. the shots of the misty, cloudy little goat farm, with grim muddy roads and classic Italian architectures, the ruins of civilization. Where the families eat, pray, grief, and die, throughout their lives. There is one great shot tracking a drug shipment down the coast from Milan, that has tension, and an ominous beauty.
Love, family, fate, betrayal, violence, a world where there is no redemption, only regrets and violence, the themes are simple and the movie takes them deep into the uncomfortable and bleak depths of conscience.
