MARCO BELLOCCHIO | ITALY | 2023 | 134 MIN | ITALIAN, HEBREW
Nearly 60 years after the release of his seminal breakthrough Fists in the Pocket, Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio proves that his furious energy hasn’t waned a bit with this sumptuously mounted costume drama, which wowed audiences at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Kidnapped is the unbelievable true story of Edgardo Mortara (Enea Sala), a six-year-old boy forcibly taken from his Jewish family in 1858 and sent to live in the Vatican. Despite his parents’ desperate pleas and a mounting international uproar, traditionalist Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon) refuses to back down, forcing Edgardo to renounce his faith and become an observant Catholic. Vividly conjuring a tumultuous era of Italian history, Bellocchio captures the fascinating historical context surrounding the Mortara case, which occurred just as the unification of Italy threatened the papacy’s control. Kidnapped is both a grandly entertaining melodrama and a sobering reminder of antisemitism’s pervasive influence.
Cast: Enea Sala, Leonardo Maltese, Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi
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