Although Leonardo Sciascia may be a name that means nothing to most viewers, he was a brilliant Italian novelist of Sicilian origins who acted as his country's moral consciousness for several decades, writing novels and short-stories that analysed Italy's Mafia, the fascist years, and the recrudescence of totalitarianism during the chaotic 'years of lead' during the '60s and '70s. So popular and extraordinary were the novels of this first-rate storyteller, that many of them were turned into movies, and quite good in their right.
Porte Aperte, based on one of his final novellas, concerns an elderly judge burdened with the responsibility of trying a multiple murderer. It's 1938, the Fascists are in power and Italy is re-enacting the death penalty again, in order to show the regime's strength and zero tolerance with crime. Judge Vito Di Francesco, although not an anti-fascist, isn't ready to simply sentence the defendant to death. Carefully and meticulously, he tries to understand the motives of the killer and to find a way of reducing the penalty to life imprisonment. Against him is the regime, which wants an example of swift justice, and the defendant himself, who demands to be executed.
This movie, to me, has flaws and weaknesses that need to be quickly addressed. I found the killer's motives to demand the death penalty unclear: was he making a political point? Was he holding the regime's inhumanity to their eyes? I never understood what motivated him to act in such a suicidal manner. I also found it hard to sympathise with the plight of a man sentenced to death who himself had killed four people, including his wife, right after raping her. But perhaps a point of the movie was just that – that even the most vicious criminals have a right to live.
Otherwise, the movie is quite solid and watchable. As a court room drama, the movie is slow-paced and introspective rather than frantic and bombastic. There are some fine verbal skirmishes between the judge and the witnesses and the defendant, but otherwise the movie focus a lot on his doubts and attempts at finding a loophole to save the man from execution.
Gian Maria Volonté, the great Italian actor, plays the judge, and needless to say he brings the gravitas and serenity required for the character. Although Volonté is mainly known as El Indio from Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More, movies like Porte Aperte were really the sort of movies he preferred to star in. Volonté took seriously the '60s and '70s call to artists and intellectuals to join the revolutionary struggle. Whatever people may think of that nowadays, it led to Volonté starring in many fine movies with a political tinge: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Todo Modo (another Sciascia adaptation, and hilariously and chillingly prophesying the murder of Italian prime-minister Aldo Moro), Ogro, The Working Class Goes To Heaven, etc. Watching Porte Aperte, however, I was taken aback at his age and frail look. Knowing him mainly from when he was a younger actor, filling his performances with rage and energy, it was a surprise to see him still deliver such a nuanced and powerful performance just a few years before his death.
Porte Aperte, based on one of his final novellas, concerns an elderly judge burdened with the responsibility of trying a multiple murderer. It's 1938, the Fascists are in power and Italy is re-enacting the death penalty again, in order to show the regime's strength and zero tolerance with crime. Judge Vito Di Francesco, although not an anti-fascist, isn't ready to simply sentence the defendant to death. Carefully and meticulously, he tries to understand the motives of the killer and to find a way of reducing the penalty to life imprisonment. Against him is the regime, which wants an example of swift justice, and the defendant himself, who demands to be executed.
This movie, to me, has flaws and weaknesses that need to be quickly addressed. I found the killer's motives to demand the death penalty unclear: was he making a political point? Was he holding the regime's inhumanity to their eyes? I never understood what motivated him to act in such a suicidal manner. I also found it hard to sympathise with the plight of a man sentenced to death who himself had killed four people, including his wife, right after raping her. But perhaps a point of the movie was just that – that even the most vicious criminals have a right to live.
Otherwise, the movie is quite solid and watchable. As a court room drama, the movie is slow-paced and introspective rather than frantic and bombastic. There are some fine verbal skirmishes between the judge and the witnesses and the defendant, but otherwise the movie focus a lot on his doubts and attempts at finding a loophole to save the man from execution.
Gian Maria Volonté, the great Italian actor, plays the judge, and needless to say he brings the gravitas and serenity required for the character. Although Volonté is mainly known as El Indio from Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More, movies like Porte Aperte were really the sort of movies he preferred to star in. Volonté took seriously the '60s and '70s call to artists and intellectuals to join the revolutionary struggle. Whatever people may think of that nowadays, it led to Volonté starring in many fine movies with a political tinge: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Todo Modo (another Sciascia adaptation, and hilariously and chillingly prophesying the murder of Italian prime-minister Aldo Moro), Ogro, The Working Class Goes To Heaven, etc. Watching Porte Aperte, however, I was taken aback at his age and frail look. Knowing him mainly from when he was a younger actor, filling his performances with rage and energy, it was a surprise to see him still deliver such a nuanced and powerful performance just a few years before his death.
