Last night we were at the 6:00 screening of Daniele Ciprì’s È Stato Il Filglio at the Francesca Beale Theater at New York Lincoln Center and Ciprì was there for a Q&A after the film. We’d already’s seen this movie’s premier at the Venice Film Festival last August and my husband, Brian had loved it then, but it was a rainy day in New York and we’d just polished off a bottle of wine at Benoit, and Brian was sleepy, so he asked me if I’d mind if he fell asleep.
But ‘È Stato Il Filglio’ is too good; Brian couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. This film is the best I’ve seen in years, and can’t for the life of me figure out why it hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.
READ MY ORIGINAL REVIEW OF È STATO IL FIGLIO
The Q&A was almost as great as the film; Ciprì had a lot to say about it that I hadn’t known. For one thing, it’s a movie made from a book that is based on a true story. Making the movie, Ciprì read all the police reports and court documents to tell a story that he says he was not so much interested in the realty of it but in the imagery. He says that he’d originally wanted to film it in Ukraine, though he may have been joking (I can’t be sure), because the location wasn’t important and he was looking for a certain starkenss that was not peculiar to Palermo, the story’s setting. “This isn’t a story about Palermo”, he said, “but of all of Italy”.
His admiration for the film’s leading actor, Toni Servillo, was obvious, but he pointed out that since Servillo wasn’t from Sicily, he’d had to help set the tone for the movie and that the other actors, professional and non-professional, had followed his lead.
Was it the son? Ciprì seemed to think that it was not; he hinted at another culprit, and one that I hadn’t adequately considered. He pointed out, and I had never given this any thought, that the entire account might be a complete fabrication.
I don’t know if it was the son, or the cousin, or maybe even the Grandmother, but what I know for sure: È Stato Il Filglio blows the more critically acclaimed Marco Bellocchio film Bella Addormentata away. Let’s hope that Ciprì isn’t a one hit wonder and comes up with another one soon.
I Love Italian Everything 