20/10/2009

It is above all a formidable, desolate and threatening Taranto (in Apulia, with its fumes, concrete and toxic smog) that is at once captivating (a cathedral-city, a symbol of post-industrial archaeology) and is the true main character of Alessandro di Robilant’s Marpiccolo, screening at the Rome Film Festival in the children’s sidebar section Alice in the City.

Produced by Overlook Production and RAI Cinema, the new film by the director of Il Giudice Ragazzino and Forever gives us the story of a devastated family struggling to escape a terrible fate in the shadow of the Ilva steelworks complex.

The film is carried by a surprising debut actor with a past in the circus, Giulio Beranek. He plays Tiziano, who uses his lively intelligence for crime while trying not to drown in the quicksand that are the slot machines to which his father Franco (Nicola Rignanese) has become addicted. Meanwhile, his mother Maria (Anna Ferruzzo) distracts herself from her family’s disintegration by fighting against a new source of pollution in the city.

The semi-known protagonists are flanked by more familiar faces – including Michele Riondino, Giorgio Colangeli and Valentina Carnelutti – all of whom pull at Tiziano, some towards organised crime, others towards culture and a legal lifestyle.

Loosely based on Andrea Cotti’s novel Stupido, Marpiccolo flows inconsistently. The Ilva threat, for example, is so visually present and effective that the insistence with which the characters speak of it sounds somewhat forced. Whereas many interesting elements, like the reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, often disappear too quickly.

Made with a contribution from the Apulia Film Commission and the Ministry of Culture, with music by Mokadelic, Marpiccolo will be released domestically on November 6 by Bolero Film.