''The Mayor of Rione Sanità'' ( it, Il sindaco del Rione Sanità) is a 2019 Italian
crime drama film
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
directed by
Mario Martone, based on the
1960 play of the same name by
Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo (; 24 May 1900 – 31 October 1984), also known simply as ''Eduardo'', was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan works ''Filumena Marturano'' and '' Napoli Milionaria''. Consid ...
. The film is intended as a modern take on the play, inspired by the theatrical adaptation directed by Martone in 2018, with several members of the cast returning. It was selected to compete for the
Golden Lion at the
76th Venice International Film Festival
The 76th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 28 August to 7 September 2019. Film director Lucrecia Martel was appointed as the President of the Jury. '' The Truth'', directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, was selected to open the f ...
.
Plot
In the
Rione Sanità
Rione Sanità (literally "Health Neighbourhood" in Italian) is a neighbourhood in Naples, part of the Stella quarter. It is located north of Naples' historical centre, adjacent to the Capodimonte hill.
History
What is now Rione Sanità was a bur ...
neighborhood of
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, Antonio Barracano –known as “The Mayor”– is an undisputed authority amongst both common people and the
Camorra, whose job is to settle disputes outside the law, even by
unorthodox methods. When he's asked to help a young man determined to kill his father, however, Barracano will have to make a choice regarding his self-imposed
moral code
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
.
Cast
Release
The film will have its world premiere on 30 August 2019 at the
Venice International Film Festival.
It will have a
limited release in Italy from 30 September to 2 October 2019 by Nexo Digital.
Reception
The film received an eight-minute standing ovation during its premiere in Venice.
Game Today Magazine prized the acting proof of the cast ensemble, in particularly the performance of Francesco Di Leva, and defined the film: "
..a Greek tragedy philologically wiped out by shootings, blood and violence , all kept off-screen. A chamber drama of funereal impassivity but of moral heartbeats fortunately more visceral than verbose
... Cineuropa wrote that: "At a great distance from the
Gomorra of television, Martone's film is a story without time or place, about guilt, redemption and hope — as shown by the protagonist’s responsible gesture at the film’s end, open and non-pacifying, and which De Filippo, already 60 years ago, had written without any sense of false optimism. With The Mayor of Rione Sanità, the Neapolitan director once more creates a contact between cinema and theatre, inspired by
Polanski,
Fassbinder,
Kurosawa and certainly
Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
, moving his characters in large but closed spaces, and putting them in focus with lengthy close-ups".
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...
's Deborah Young wrote that Martone's film: "
.is a challenging work whose verbal violence is engrossing but also repellent. It is certainly one of the director’s more successful films, but it suffers from the same intellectual barriers that have made his work so difficult to access for general audiences. As fascinating as the actors’ performances are to watch, their meaning is not so easy to interpret, and many willing viewers will leave the film more bemused than enlightened".
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayor of Rione Sanita, The
2019 films
2019 crime drama films
Italian crime drama films
Italian films based on plays
2010s Italian-language films
Films about the Camorra
Films directed by Mario Martone
Films based on works by Eduardo De Filippo