Weekend films

'Iddu - The Last Godfather', ups and downs in the film on Matteo Messina Denaro

Weekend at the cinema with the feature film by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, presented in competition at this year's Venice Film Festival. Starring Elio Germano and Toni Servillo

11 October 2024

3' min read

It is certainly one of the most talked-about Italian films of recent months, 'Iddu - The Last Godfather', a new feature film by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, presented in competition at this year's Venice Film Festival.

The reason why there has been so much talk about it is very simple: the subject takes its inspiration from the life of Matteo Messina Denaro, one of Cosa Nostra's most powerful bosses, who was arrested at the beginning of 2023 after a 30-year hiding period. Died eight months after his capture, in September last year, Messina Denaro was a mysterious figure, essentially invisible, and it is precisely this latter aspect that the two directors focus on, now in their third feature film after 'Salvo' (2013) and 'Sicilian Ghost Story' (2017).

“Iddu – L’ultimo Padrino” e gli altri film della settimana
Photogallery4 foto

However, there are two main characters in the film because, in addition to the notorious wanted man, the plot also focuses on Catello, a long-time politician who has lost practically everything after spending a few years in prison for mafia charges. When the Italian Secret Service asks him for help in capturing his godson Matteo, the last major mafia fugitive in circulation, Catello seizes the opportunity to get back into the game. A cunning man of a hundred masks, Catello initiates a unique and improbable exchange of letters with the fugitive, whose emotional void he tries to take advantage of. A gamble that with one of the world's most wanted criminals entails a certain risk.

It begins by mixing past and present, childhood and adulthood, of the character inspired by Messina Denaro, 'Iddu', a film with which Grassadonia and Piazza take up some of the themes and stylistic modes of their previous works.

More than a film with gangster overtones, 'Iddu' has moments - especially towards the conclusion - that verge on the western, both in its play on the sense of expectation and silences, and in the confrontation between the human figures on stage and their surroundings.

Good interpretations but lacking incisiveness

There is no shortage of noteworthy sequences and the filmmakers do well to give the film the right atmosphere, through a general aura of mystery that cloaks several passages, but at the same time there are numerous scenes that are not very incisive and the screenplay runs the risk of going in circles, especially in the central part.

From a film with this premise it was legitimate to ask for something more, although the pace is engaging and the characters well played: the fugitive is a very credible Elio Germano, Toni Servillo does his duty as Catello, although from an actor of his greatness we expect even more intense performances.

The parent-child theme, not only in the biological sense, is certainly the film's most interesting cue, while some subplots are forced and rather superfluous.

All We Imagine As Light

From the competition of the last Cannes Film Festival comes the Indian film 'All We Imagine As Light' by Payal Kapadia.

Set in Mumbai, the film is about the problematic routine of a nurse, who one day receives a package that brings back memories of a past she had tried to leave behind. Meanwhile, her younger roommate seeks a secluded place in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend.

After the experimental 'A Night of Knowing Nothing' (2021), Payal Kapadia signs a work that offers an even brutal overview of the city of Mumbai, combined with some strongly poetic sequences accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack. The commitment can be felt and the characters are carefully written and manage to emote, but there is a lack of great narrative and stylistic touches to remember, so much so that the staging rests on an overly scholastic foundation.

At Cannes, it won a generous Grand Jury Prize: an excessive award for a film that is gentle and delicate, but lacks the cinematic strength of several other products competing in the same competition.