Review: Sicilian Ghost Story

There's an image near the end of Sicilian Ghost Story, the endlessly captivating sophomore feature from writers-directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, that is so viscerally unsettling and yet so mesmerising that it beguiles, repulses and pierces the heart. The image feels almost embryonic, yet the matter seen has nothing to do with a beginning and everything to do with a terrible end.

Sicilian Ghost Story brilliantly crafts a dark, Grimm-worthy fairy tale out of the horrifying true story of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Mateo, the son of a Mafia informer who was kidnapped and held by the Mafia for 779 days before being strangled and then dissolved in acid. Guiseppe's story unfolds through the eyes of Luna (Julia Jedlikowska), first seen following him into the forest, a love letter clutched in her hand. The forest is a place of both magic - Giuseppe is seen with a butterfly perched on his hand, the two all but declare themselves the other's first love - and foreboding, as evidenced by the rabid dog, its mouth still bloody from feasting on rabbit flesh, that chases the two before being distracted by Giuseppe's discarded backpack. The pair take shelter at Guiseppe's home, where he shares his love of horses with her and the two share their first kiss. Later, Luna, lost in love's embrace, faintly registers a police car driving away in the distance.

That car actually contains Mafia thugs disguised in police uniforms and Guiseppe, believing they were taking him to see his imprisoned father, doesn't realise their true identities until far too late. He's shackled in a room with a single window to remind him of the outside world. Meanwhile everyone, including the real police, maintains an omerta regarding Giuseppe's disappearance. What is already a chilling crime is made all the more so because of community's ingrained obeisance to such a corrupt and omnipresent force. Yet Luna refuses to fall in line with the silence and inaction. She is determined to discover what happened to her love, and her rebellion against the town, her school, her complacent father, and her stern and oppressive mother not only display a strength of character but of imagination as well.

The power of imagination fuels much of the film's narrative. Giuseppe and Luna sustain a psychic connection that allows the both of them escape from their lives, which provides Giuseppe with hope in his time of darkness and which fuels Luna's determination to continue her quest. Fantasy and reality blur into one another, one is never absolutely certain whether particular sequences are true or imagined. Yet this porousness adds rather than diminishes the film's emotional power. To watch Giuseppe's spirit drain is almost unbearably painful, and yet to have a transition such as the breathtaking moment of Guiseppe's face dissolving into darkness with only the barely discernible dots of light in his eyes forecast his end shows how pain can be transformed into poetry.

Exquisite cinematography from Luca Bigazzi adds to the film's hypnotic quality. Sicilian Ghost Story is a singularly magnificent film and one that well establishes the limitless talents of Grassadonia and Piazza. They are ones to watch.

Sicilian Ghost Story

Directed by: Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza

Written by: Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza

Starring: Julia Jedlikowska, Gaetano Fernandez, Corinne Musallari, Andrea Falzone, Federico Finocchiaro, Lorenzo Curcio, Vincenzo Amato, Sabine Timateo