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MAFIOSO Send This Review to a Friend
Rialto Pictures has done yet another service by releasing anew a 1962 Italian work that deserves classic status. “Mafioso,” directed by the late Alberto Lattuada and presented at the 2006 New York Film Festival, trumps most of the more recent films currently showing. Brilliant in conception and atmosphere, it also offers a magnificent performance by the late great Italian actor Alberto Sordi, backed by well-cast actors in the supporting roles. In part the film is a dark comedy, but it is also a sharp character study, a portrait of a small Mafia-controlled Sicilian town and a dramatic tale in which the plot intensifies toward a shattering climax.
I believe that telling anything more than the basic sendoff can partly ruin the experience for you. This is a film that provides pleasures as you go along and glean more information about where the film is going and yet can still surprise you before it is over.
What I’ll share is that Sordi plays Nino, a transplanted Sicilian, who is a supervisor in a Milan factory, a striver for efficiency who keeps the workers on their toes and the machinery running. A sample of the comic tone occurs early when a whistle blows and everyone scurries away on cue.
Nino is to take vacation time instead of a bonus and leave with his attractive wife and their children to visit his family in Sicily. His boss asks him to take a small package to the local bigwig, Don Vincenzo (Ugo Attanasio). Off the family goes, and there is much delight in watching the interplay between the assortment of characters, including a sister with a mustache, a mother who is suspicious of Nino’s wife, sympathetically played by Norma Bengell, and Nino’s odd-looking father who is in a land-purchase dispute.
The first order of business is a family visit to pay respects to Don Vincenzo. Nino doesn’t know what he’s in for, and neither will you. Take it from there and enjoy a fabulous film reminiscent of some of the best in Italian cinema. The screenwriters include
Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri, Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli, based on a story by Bruno Caruso. Usually, with so many writers, a film can be a mess. Not this time. The tale is lean, well-constructed and witty.
There is a segment of English speaking that seems to have been badly dubbed and has a hollow ring to the tone and dialogue. Otherwise, all is masterly, and reminds us of what a good director Lattuada was. In addition to the many films he directed on his own, he co-directed “Variety Lights” with Federico Fellini. It is a gratifying to rediscover him. A Rialto Pictures release.
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