Anti-Mafia Films: A Testimony of Resistance

By Pasquale Verdicchio, UCSD
Program Director SDIFF

The recent publication of Roberto Saviano’s book Gomorra (2006), and Matteo Garrone’s 2008 film version by the same name, represent a milepost of sorts in the long struggle against organized crime in Italy. Criminal organizations such as the Camorra, the ‘ndrangheta and the Mafia have long been a blight on Italian society. The mistaken notion that their violence was internal to their organizations and that “good people” who were not involved were most likely never to have to come face to face with that reality has repeatedly been broken by highly visible and impactful incidents. Saviano based his book on actual Judicial records not merely to reveal single crimes and their perpetrators but to point out the insidious nature of criminal organizations and a whole series of connections by which the Camorra, like the Mafia and ‘ndrangheta, has infiltrated every aspect of private and public life.

The films in this “Anti-Mafia Mini-series” presented by the San Diego Italian Film Festival testify to the long-standing struggle against organized crime. La Scorta (1993), I Cento Passi (2000) and Alla Luce del Sole (2005) form part of a subgenre of Italian cinema that has come to be labeled "political film". The Neapolitan film-maker Francesco Rosi is acknowledged as one of the fathers of the genre, having made among others Hands Over the City (1963), The Mattei Affair (1972) and Salvatore Giuliano (1974) all of which in some way explored the extent of corruption in the Italian political milieu and its collusion with organized criminality. More recent films, such as the ones in our series, and Alessandro Di Robilant’s Il giudice ragazzino (1994), Pasquale Scimeca’s Placido Rizzotto (2000) and Marco Amenta’s La siciliana ribelle (2009) have also joined the ranks of the political film genre with what can more accurately be termed anti-mafia films.

One particularly important trait of these films is that they make known the names and stories of ordinary, every-day people in their struggle against organized crime.

La Scorta

The early 1990s in Italy were marred by the unveiling of the corruption that ran deep through the country’s political elite. Already there had been suggestions of these ties made by General Della Chiesa in 1982, when he wrote the then President Spadolini suggesting that “the Sicilian branch of the Christian Democrats that answers directly to Andreotti is the political family that is most tarnished by mafia contaminations". Eventually, these suggestions were shown to be true with Tangentopoli (Bribesville) and Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) scandals and trials of the early 90s. These events all but decimated the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and Christian Democrats (DC) parties and led to an almost complete reorganization of the Italian political landscape.

The judge Antonio Di Pietro led the charge in the investigations and sentencing in the above named actions. Along with Di Pietro other judges from the so-called Milan team worked to unearth the illicit activities, corruption and organized crime connections that had since the end of WWII held the country in its grip. Many politicians were indicted under charges that suggested collusion with organized crime. As more and more politicians fell by the wayside, the feeling that a new day in the struggle with crime had began gave rise to many Anti-Mafia cultural and political organizations. At the state level, a concerted effort was made to assign magistrates to deal specifically with the Mafia.

Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were two such magistrates who sought to bring to justice Mafiosi and move toward restoring a sense of respectability to the country. The film La Scorta was made in the aftermath of the May and July 1992 assassinations of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, ten years after Della Chiesa, who had himself been sent to Sicily to deal with the Mafia, had been assassinated.

While Italians could not but identify Falcone, Borsellino and others in the magistrate portrayed in the film, La Scorta is a film that casts its lens toward a reality that is often forgotten and certainly undervalued for the service it renders the country, the magistrate’s bodyguards. The film’s main focus is on the lives of the policemen who accompany and protect him. This is a protest film that is unpretentious yet forceful and which, without raising its voice, effectively gives a face to the dedication of usually invisible and unheralded individuals.

Visit film page >

I Cento Passi

Less is known or said of others, common citizens and anti-mafia activists such as the young magistrate Rosario Livatino, Peppino Impastato, Placido Rizzotto, Don Giuseppe Puglisi and Rita Atria (the subject of the recently released La siciliana ribelle). These individuals acted locally, within their immediate communities to oppose the dominion of the mafia by opening the doors on an often insular culture and defy a code of silence (omertà) that has historically been a defense against outsiders.

With I cento passi Marco Tullio Giordana brings to the screen the life of the young Sicilian and anti-mafia activist Peppino Impastato. Living a mere one hundred steps from the home of a well-known Mafia boss, the young Impastato rebels against the quiet acceptance of that presence that monitors and controls the life of his city. His task is made that much harder by the fact that many of the people he and his family know and deal with, including his own father, are in some manner involved with the Mafia. One of the film’s most significant suggestions is that Impastato and his young friends and followers represent a danger to the Mafia not for expressing their dissatisfaction, but for communicating it beyond the closed society in which they live. Through the use of their own radio station, music, poetry, rallies and other manifestations Impastato begins to point to a world of possibilities outside of what the Mafia offers and, by doing that, brings unwanted attention to their limitations and oppressive nature.

It is quite significant that these films make their appearance at a time in Italian history when the center left holds governmental power for 5 years (1996-2001) after having defeated the first short-lived Berlusconi government. That period, which received a positive review from the International Monetary Fund for the improved economic and development situation in the country, seems to have also offered the opportunity to bring to light the struggle and courage of every-day people in opposition to well-rooted corruption and criminality.

Visit film page >

Alla luce del sole

Roberto Faenza similarly brings attention to the life of an apparently minor figure in his 2005 film about the priest Don Giuseppe Puglisi. Working in the town of Brancaccio, Don Puglisi made it a task to open the church to young boys and men to offer an alternative to what awaited them if they continued to live life without hope. By opening the doors of his church as a sanctuary, Don Puglisi challenged the dominance of the Mafia and the only resource for the town’s youth. He in fact reduced the pool of recruits available to the mobsters. Omertà, the long-standing law of silence that has enabled the Mafia to rule through fear and distrust, contributed to frustrate the priest’s progress, even as he demonstrated his commitment to the life of his parishioners by putting his life on the line. With this film, Roberto Faenza continues to contribute to a long and growing line of films that put the Mafia and other organized crime groups alla luce del sole (in the light of the sun), in the right context for everyone to begin to understand their impact on everyday lives.

In closing, I would like to mention a film that was very well received by critics and the public alike, Il Divo (2008) by Paolo Sorrentino. This film, through satire, surrealism, reconstructions, humor and historical fact sheds light on another important character in Italian history over the last sixty years, Giulio Andreotti. As a main player in Italian politics since its first post-WWII government, a seven-time prime minister, ex-minister of the interior, exterior, culture and so on, Andreotti had a hand in every major event in Italian life. From his famous Andreotti Law of the 50s, by which he devised an “official” way of limiting what he thought was a negative view of Italy that film makers such as De Sica were projecting, to his alleged involvement in the Aldo Moro affair, to his alleged Mafia connections, Andreotti has/is an indelible presence on the Italian landscape. Il Divo is in many ways the portrait of a man whose way of wielding political power is akin to the quiet, restrained and controlled figure of Don Corleone in the Godfather, as such it serves as a linchpin in understanding at least some of the connections that continue to condition and influence the role of the Mafia in Italian society.

Visit film page >