Kidnapped (Rapito) is one of Marco Bellocchio’s most successful films, both as a taut thriller that will capture audiences with his terribly human drama, and as a masterful reflection on the themes that the Italian director has worried and revisited over a lifetime of filmmaking: the Catholic church as an anti-liberal indoctrinating machine that steals children’s souls, the frailty of personal identity, and the struggle for liberation on an individual and societal level. Graced with gorgeous Italian settings and painterly camerawork, the Italo-French-German production should make a splash in Cannes competition and go on to become one of the top Italian sellers of the year.
The 83-year-old filmmaker has never been in better form than here, where he directs an inspired cast in a screenplay that stays fascinating over a two-hour-plus running time. Based closely on a true story that Steven Spielberg once considered filming, and freely inspired by a book by Daniele Scalise, the premise is that the power of the Papal State (and the “Papa-Re”, the Pope-King) was so great in 19th century Italy that a Pope could apply obscure and highly debatable Church laws to kidnap children from their non-Catholic parents, if they believed the little ones had been baptized as Christians.
This is what happened to Edgardo Mortara, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Bologna, who as a baby was secretly baptized by a housemaid. His case was to become a cause célèbre in Europe and America, and a rallying point for a nationalistic uprising that contributed to the overthrow of the Papal State and the unification of Italy.
Far from being a dry history lesson with pretty backdrops, or the weepy tale of a destroyed family, Bellocchio’s Kidnapped is a stirring story that reaches deep into questions of religious beliefs and their limits in a lay society. While always respectful of the Jewish communities he depicts in Bologna and Rome (though some historical figures are shown as quite flawed human beings), the portrait that emerges of Pope Pius IX and his court is a Catholic hierarchy drunk on power and their own dogmas. A direct line can be traced to the director’s earlier work like My Mother’s Smile and Blood of my Blood, to name but two films the directly address the excesses of Catholicism.
The opening scenes establish the warm, loving atmosphere that prevails in the Mortara household in Bologna where the family, headed by Salomone (actor and theater director Fausto Russo Alesi, The Traitor) and Marianna (a deeply communicative Barbara Ronchi), teach their eight children Hebrew prayers that are recited at meals and bedtime. One night in 1858, without any warning, there is a knock on the door and the chief of police bursts in on orders from the local Inquisitor (Fabrizo Gifuni in tonsure and a fanatical scowl) to take their 6-year-old son Edgardo away.
The drama builds exponentially in the following scenes, when neighbors from the Jewish community lend a hand in getting a 24-hour postponement of the order, and the desperate father considers dropping his son out of a second floor window to relatives on the street. But all their efforts are useless in the face of armed policemen and an immovable Papacy.
What happens next to Edgardo is hair-raising. In a few masterful strokes, Bellocchio shows him in a carriage with his abductors, who include to a woman who puts a necklace with a cross around his neck. They spirit him away by boat (his parents have been falsely told he would remain in Bologna where they could visit him regularly) and after a long voyage with these ambiguous strangers, the child ends up in Rome. In a dormitory full of little boys his age, he is tucked into a bed by a priest and his fate seems sealed. But there is still a lot of story to be told.
Much of it unfolds like a surreal horror story with religious connotations. When the ecclesiastic authorities introduce Edgardo to Pope Pius IX, played by theater actor and TV star Paolo Pierobon as a disturbingly jovial autocrat, he gloats over the brazen kidnapping while his secretary of state (Filippo Timi) looks worried. Eventually the little boy with the angelic face and curly brown locks becomes such a favorite that the Pope tells him he is his “real father”.
At the same time Salomone and Marianna are moving heaven and earth to get their son back; they even manage to bring the inquisitor to trial for unlawful abduction. But the real drama is going on inside Edgardo’s head, where his memories of his parents and his Jewish faith are challenged by non-stop catechism lessons and prayers to the saints, amounting to brainwashing by the priests. When he grows into a teenager (sensitively portrayed by Leonardo Maltese), his inner schizophrenia bursts out onscreen in several devastating scenes powered by repressed emotions.
But it is child actor Enea Sala, making his inspired screen debut as a confused yet prematurely self-controlled boy, who makes an impression as the kidnapped child. Though Bellocchio never allows the story to sink into mere sentimentality, there is one extraordinary scene involving Edgardo and a life-size statue of the crucified Christ that deserves to be anthologized for its eerie mysticism and psychological resonance.
The pace, which has been swift and urgent in the kidnapping sequences, becomes almost frenetic in later scenes meant to summarize the political uprising by armed rebels who fought for the unification of Italy. But the fighting itself ends up reduced to a crumbling wall and a screenful of gray smoke, in a scene that feels hurried and tacked on.
There is nary a misstep on the technical side, where Francesco Di Giacomo’s dramatic choice of lighting emphasizes the story’s operatic side and its links to classic 19th century melodrama. The atmosphere of magnificence is further reinforced by Fabio Massimo Capogrosso’s original score and Andrea Castorina’s period production design glorifying Italian Baroque, with its heavy reliance on marble sculptures and architectural inlays suggesting the Papal State’s supposed invincibility.
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Screenplay: Marco Bellocchio, Susanna Nicchiarelli with Edoardo Albinati, Daniela Ceselli based on a book by Daniele Scalise
Cast: Enea Sala, Leonardo Maltese, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Paolo Pierobon, Fabrizio Gifuni, Filippo Timi, Corrado Invernizzi, Paolo Calabresi, Alessandro Fiorucci
Producers: Beppe Caschetto, Paolo Del Brocco, Simone Gattoni
Cinematography: Francesco Di Giacomo
Production design: Andrea Castorina
Costume design: Sergio Ballo, Daria Calvelli
Editing: Francesca Calvelli, Stefano Mariotti
Music: Fabio Massimo Capogrosso
Sound mixing: Adriano Di Lorenzo
Production company/companies: IBC, Kavac Film, Rai Cinema in association with Ad Vitam Production, Arte France Cinema, The Match Factory
World sales: The Match Factory
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In Italian
125 min.
