The Mafia Kills Only in Summer [La mafia uccide solo d’estate] *** (2013, Pif, Cristiana Capotondi) – Classic Movie Review 12,819

The 2013 Italian comedy-drama film The Mafia Kills Only In Summer follows the troubled history in Sicily from the late Seventies to 1992, mocking Mafia bosses and toasting the heroes of Antimafia, while a boy called Arturo pursues his love for Flora.

Inspired by shocking real events in the not so long ago past, the 2013 Italian comedy-drama film The Mafia Kills Only In Summer [La mafia uccide solo d’estate] is billed as a black comedy following two decades of troubled history in Sicily from the late Seventies to 1992, mocking Mafia bosses and toasting the heroes of Antimafia.

But it focuses on the young Arturo Giammarresi, a boy who grows up in Palermo, Italy, wants to become a journalist and has loved Flora since he was ten, and tries to conquer her heart. And that’s the problem. It’s not focused on the Mafia. The Arturo/ Flora romance seems a nothing thing in the context, and it’s pretty much a nothing thing in the film too, though it takes up a considerable amount of it. But meanwhile, people in Palermo are slowly waking up to the horrifying, murderous existence of Cosa Nostra.

No, this is not a black comedy at all. Yes, some appallingly silly comedy and sentimentality, as well as some poor comedy performances and some weak casting mar an interesting though awkward idea – to set a comedy against the very serious background of Mafia killings in Sicily. The film’s serious side is so much better than its comedy side that you are begging for an entirely serious Antimafia movie, not this Life Is Beautiful kind of take on tragedy.

It is the film directorial debut of the TV satirist Pif [Pierfrancesco Diliberto]. was born in Palermo on 4 June 1972. he also co-writes the film with Michele Astori and Marco Martani.

Pif is also the adult actor taking over from the child actor as Arturo in the second half of the movie set in 1992, and he is very unappealing. He just looks too old and too goofy, and his comedy lacks any subtlety. Though, to be fair, this is a brand of comedy popular in Italy, and he’s playing to it. It is in the Roberto Benigni Life Is Beautiful ballpark. And unfortunately the child actor playing Arturo in the Seventies segment isn’t very appealing or winsome either – Alex Bisconti as Arturo (child). The two Floras are just cutouts, so it’s hardly the actresses fault that they make limited impression or impact – Cristiana Capotondi as Flora (adult), Ginevra Antona as Flora (child).

And, of course, the Mafia men are uncomfortably treated like comedy characters, hence the black comedy idea, a difficult idea to sell since these real characters were stone cold killers. But, much worse, is the appalling, rancid ‘comedy’ performance of Maurizio Marchetti as personality Jean Pierre.

Yet the film does have an appeal. It’s good to see Palermo and all those vintage car and artefacts, and it’s good to be reminded in some detail of this appalling era in Sicily’s history. The film ends up quite strongly as a homage to the policemen and magistrates who fought and gave their lives to try to destroy the Sicilian Mafia. The ending with Arturo, now a father, taking his young son around the many Sicilian memorials to the dead heroes of the law is brave and moving. Pif doesn’t want this bravery to be forgotten.

And there are some funny things: the previously worryingly silent young boy’s first word is ‘mafia’, pointing to the priest, and much later he goes to a fancy dress party dressed as Premier Andreotti, his hero, but is mistaken by the other kids for the hunchback of Notre Dame, or Dracula. The comedy is quite quirky.

The cast are Pif as Arturo (adult), Cristiana Capotondi as Flora (adult), Claudio Gioè as Francesco, Ninni Bruschetta as Fra Giacinto, Ginevra Antona as Flora (child), Maurizio Marchetti as Jean Pierre, and Barbara Tabita as Arturo’s mother.

It premiered at the 2013 Torino Film Festival and was released in Italy on 28 November 2013, winning best comedy film at the 27th European Film Awards.

A TV series followed: The Mafia Kills Only in Summer (2016–2018), with Pif as creator, narrator and screenwriter.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,819

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