BLACK SOULS/ ANIME NERE

Italy, 2014, 109 minutes, Colour.
Marco Leonardi, Pippino Mazotta, Fabrizio Ferracane, Barbora Bobulova, Giuseppe Fumo.
Directed by Francesco Munzi.

Black Souls has been praised as a different kind of Mafia film. While there were many Italian gangster films, especially in the 1960s and 70s, the norms for Mafia films were set by Coppola’s The Godfather in 1972. The focus is on family, family business, control – with some spectacular scenes of violence.

This is a 21st-century film of the Mafia, comparatively little explicit violence on screen, with the focus on family and family relationships, and family business.

The focus is on three middle-aged sons. Their father had been killed in a dispute. Two of the sons are involved in criminal activity, one, quite suave, the face of the operation while his brother is the brains behind the ventures and exercises quiet control. The third brother has not joined them in the enterprise but stays at home in the south, tending goats, acting as a vet. However, one of his sons decides to leave home and join his uncles, leading to some confrontations and some violence.

1. Mafia story? Family story? Southern Italy? Expansion into Milan and the North?

2. Locations, villages, cities, homes, apartments, the streets? The musical score?

3. The title, the reference to the family, the family members?

4. Visually lower key than many Mafia films, the moments of violence rather than many sequences? The dramatic effect?

5. The family, the headlines about the death of the father? Luigi, the meetings with the Spaniards and other drug dealers? His sexual relationships? His character? Taking on his nephew, Leo? The contrast with Rocco, respectably married, at meetings, the person of caution, behind the scenes, his talent with management and control?

6. Luciano, in the south, the family, his relations with his son, Leo, and Leo and his reckless behaviour, destroying the bar, the shooting, accepting that Leo left to join his uncle’s, his return and Luciano’s insistence that he make peace at the bar? Luciano and his work, the goats, veterinary work?

7. Leo, young, his friends, wanting to make deals, the family, with Luigi, with Rocco? Luigi’s death and his spirit of revenge?

8. Luigi, in his car, the sudden killing in the street? The repercussions for the family?

9. Rocco, management? Luciano arriving, shooting him?

10. A masculine world, the role of the women, wives, support?

11. The 21st century picture of the Mafia?