4 stars out of 5
OK, let’s take out our mafia-movie checklist: Italians, multi-generation family, rival family, guns, drugs, glasses-wearing brother who’s “good at business,” brother who doesn’t want to be involved, hot-headed young guy, black Members Only-style jackets over black shirts, small clumps of furtive men standing around in aforementioned jackets.
Black Souls, released in Italy as Anime Nere, has it all, but still manages to be something new and quite compelling. Plus, there are goats. I dig goats.
Certainly, there are shades of The Godfather, with some Sopranos and Donnie Brasco thrown in too. This isn’t the height of organized crime; it’s the current generation barely hanging on. Yes, we start with Luigi meeting a drug kingpin on a yacht in Milan, but it’s a Spanish guy (!) who negotiates Luigi down to a lower rate than before. On the drive back to rural Calabria, Luigi and his crew—shades of the sad parking-meter robbery in Brasco—swipe a couple of goats from a local farm. Such is life in today’s ‘Ndrangheta.
Back at home there’s brother Luciano, who just wants to be left alone to tend his goats. Ah, but he has his hands full with teen son Leo, a rebellious troublemaker who idolizes Uncle Luigi. How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm, now that they’ve seen Milan?
And so begins this tragedy, complete with Shakespearean overtones. Raising it to an impressive level is director and co-writer Francesco Munzi, who expertly gives his film a unique look and feel. Despite the stated importance of la famiglia, there’s a desolation and isolation that hangs over the proceedings. Long stretches of road at night in the middle of nowhere, punctuated only by the occasional street light. Empty streets and broken-down buildings in the faded old town. Grey weather. And it’s quiet, so quiet. Most scenes have no music at all; the ambient sound–the scuffling of shoes, the ruffling of those jackets–is yet another reminder that Munzi isn’t glamorizing this world one bit. (When there are quick flourishes of music, it’s employed very effectively.)
Munzi explores the pull of the Old World and its traditions—homemade wine, a wheezing accordion, the ancient grandma—and how it clashes with the New World: glasses-wearing, finance-handling, Hank Azaria-looking brother Rocco moved to the city and married a modern girl (not Diane Keaton); Luigi drives a flashy car with a very nice sound system. But the director knows that ultimately, neither world holds the answers.
Jack Silbert, curator