Directed by Fabio Grassadoni and Antonio Piazza, Sicilian Letters is a mafia story with a twist.
If you’re expecting a shoot-’em-up style action-packed flick, this is not it. The movie is very loosely based on the search for real-life mafioso Matteo Messina Denaro and real ‘pizzini’ letters ( small slips of paper used in Sicilian mafia for high-level communications) exchanged.
Sicilian Letters is centred around Catello Palumbo (Tony Servillo) who has just finished a term in prison. As a long-time close family friend and showrunner to recently deceased mob boss Don Gaetano (Rosario Palazzolo), he is recruited by the authorities to bring down Gaetano’s successor, his son Matteo.
Unfortunately, Matteo has gone into hiding, sleeping in a secret chamber behind the bookshelf of an elegant widow to a former mob boss. Using this relationship in his favour, Palumbo initiates a series of correspondence in his grandiloquent style.
When he receives a reply from Matteo in a similar literary style, it evokes suspicion from the police. However Palumbo cleverly explains that prisoners are among the last of us who still read books.
This film is possibly what I would consider the slowest cat-and-mouse game I have ever witnessed. While the dialogue is extremely witty, and at times, laugh-out-loud funny, there is not a lot of wiggle room for losing track of the subtitles.
Visually, there is also not a lot to go by, as most of the film is set in darkness, in accordance with the sombre subject matter of the film. After all these are violent, morally corrupt men.
I hazard to say this film is not for everyone – only true fans of cerebral mafia movies need apply.
Sicilian Letters is now showing as part of the ST. ALi Italian Film Festival.