Una femmina, el código de silencio

A young woman's rebellion against her own family and against 'ndrangheta: this puzzling land called Calabria's own mafia.

A must see for the crime-drama genre lovers: depicting a secluded village run by the nowadays arguabily most powerful criminal organization WW. Unglamorous, gritty, showing the sickness (and the weakness?) of this primitive world founded on ignorance, family, violence, silence and male chauvinism.

Up there with the best on this subject (e.g. The less original/visionary but possibly more solid plotwise "Anime nere") it's obvious the craftsmanship and the care of the production (it's the directors' full length debut).

Great cinematography, music and at least a dozen of powerful, hypnotic and even horror sequences and scenes. In particular the female protagonist has a unique and extremely expressive black-eyed gaze of defiance (which I guess she could have used a little less often).

Indeed unfortunately paired with this visual poetry I found some problems with a lot of dialogues: too slow and static or weirdly delivered. Hard to tell if it's the director's or the actors' fault. Still the result is that the level of tension falls and with it the suspension of disbelief necessary for the drama to work.

Finally: no words can adeguately make justice of the marvellous final scene; I guess that watching it at the cinema (which I couldn't do) must be a blast. Would be a 7 otherwise.

Italian cinema has always been my favorite cinema. Resonances of an ancestor, perhaps; childhood memories, maybe, but both interpretations minimize the value of the greatest works of that cinema, which I have enjoyed since I was 5 years old, starting with Vittorio de Sica's «The Gold of Naples».

«Una femmina» is a portentous first feature, a wonderful Calabrian drama about a rebellious woman, in a setting of rival families and predation, which is today the modern equivalent of a classical tragedy. The Romans were warriors and learned the dramatic art from the Greeks, without ever mastering the art of making tragedies. In the meantime, they gave us the "commedia dell'arte", whose comics taught practically all of Europe how to perform, and invented opera and melodrama in an attempt to revive tragedy, not realizing that their Mediterranean dramas contained the same intense passion of the Greek neighbors they had conquered.

Such fiery spirit, with a fetid smell of death that seems to hook them like vice, dominates this story of a cursed Calabria, the region of quarrels, vendettas, camorras, dons, and padrones, related to other strong, similar contemporary works, such as Matteo Garrone's «Gomorra» (2008) and Jonas Carpignano's «A Ciambra» (2017). Far away are its protagonists from their "heirs", the violent, yet mannered mob bosses from New York and Chicago. Here is the strain, the pure lineage of crime, with a young woman who takes them on a personal vendetta to free a village, regardless of the consequences.

Beautiful images by Giuseppe Maio, redundantly effective music by Valerio Camporini Faggioni, Lina Siciliano's solid performance as Rosa, and Mario Russo's manly voice as her lover Gianni, who coos her with his songs, add up to a magnificent audiovisual experience that is not lacking in magical realism, based on Lirio Abbate's book «Fimmine ribelli. Come le donne salveranno il paese dalla n'drangheta» (Rebel Women. How Women Will Save the Region from the N'drangheta).

N'drangheta: Italian criminal organization, whose predominant area of action is Calabria.

The idea is an ingenious combination of the classical Electra legend with Yojimbo. Rosa wants revenge for the murder of her mother and takes it by turning two small-time rural Mafia families against one another. The young actress, who certainly looks the part, plays most of the movie with a fixed smouldering stare, but her subtle variations of expression are cleverly done and it would be interesting to see how well she'd handle a different type of role.

That's where the good stuff ends, alas. The director is desperate to be clever, enigmatic and arty, at the expense of both his actors and his story. The actors do manage despite this and the Calabrian scenery plays a major role, but everything runs at a funereal pace - even the (very few) action scenes seem to take place in slow motion. Yet another long and baleful stare is followed by a lingering shot of a picturesque but empty street, then someone is walking along, then another baleful stare. This is over two hours long and, if it had been anywhere near sensibly handled, there's enough plot in there to fill most of that time. But as it is... There were only three reviews when I wrote this and one called the film: "a must-see for crime drama lovers" - thus luring me into watching on TV. In fact crime fans will all be asleep or will have turned off long before the end. I'm not sure who would appreciate this as two of those reviewers did, but if you like your movies slow, obscure and pretentiously directed, this may be for you.