The Mafia Kills Only in Summer

This Italian film is actually a bit of a comedy despite it being about the Mafia, or the Cosa Nostra or whatever you want to call them. Arturo is a native of Palermo where he learns early on that nothing is ever what it seems to be in Sicily. He learns too that many things can get you killed and so goes out of his way to avoid trouble.

Then he meets and falls for Flora and his whole life changes - except his seeming adoration of premier Giulio Andreotti. We follow him as he grows up on the troubled streets of Palermo where the increasing violence of the Mafia finally makes the people react and say they have had enough. This is all set against the ongoing attempts by Arturo to get the attention of Flora.

This is one of those films that manages to put a great big smile on your face whilst at the same time teaching you a bit about Sicilian political history. The actors are all great and Arturo as a child is played by Alex Bisconti who was a delight and as an adult by Pif who combined charm with vulnerability perfectly. I absolutely loved this and my version came with the option for English sub titles. It does the deal with the murders and assassinations so is far from being a full on comedy. It was though an absolute corker that should get wider distribution so more people can appreciate this Italian gem.

Directed by and starring TV personality Pierfrancesco Diliberto (Pif), the mix of comedy, childhood reminiscence and documentary reconstruction of Mafia killings in Palermo during the 1970s seems like an unusual mix, but The Mafia Kills Only In Summer would go on to win several film awards and be developed subsequently into a TV series.

There are two halves to the film, the first half dealing with the early childhood of Arturo (Alex Bisconti), his love for a new girl Flora, and his growing awareness as a child of the influence that the Mafia have over the everyday lives of the citizens of Palermo in Sicily. The second half, stars the director Pif as Arturo, now a grown man aspiring to be a journalist, still dreaming of his true love Flora as she reappears in his life, and with the events that would eventually lead to the decline of the Mafia's stranglehold over the city.

Both parts of the film have their own attractions. The first half has some moments of childhood whimsy and comic overplaying, a bit like the cinema fixation of Cinema Paradiso, only for Arturo the fascination is an unusually strange devotion to the Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. The second half mixes romantic comedy with Arturo and Flora's involvement in politics and journalism, which presents some unlikely contrasts alongside the increase in violence and assassination by mafiosi under pressure from the authorities.

In the end it's those connections to what is happening in the real-world that succeed and validate the films approach. It not only gives a real sense of what it means to have grown up in Sicily during those times, the strangeness of the times contributing to a strange view of the world for a young child, but it also manages to pay tribute to those who fought against the Mafia and paid for it with their lives. The style might seem incongruous and exaggerated, but it seems a genuine response to the times and the people who lived through them, and - just as importantly - it has an easy approach that ensures that its message is able to reach out to a wide mainstream audience.

Honestly, it started off fairly cute and fun. The young cast were great.

But it meandered to nowhere. Pointless. Try hard.

Interesting if you are a student of the Cosa Nostra, but otherwise give this mess a miss.

This is a pretty little movie about Italian mafia made by Palermo's own Pif, famous Italian TV personality who grew up experiencing most of the events dramatized in the film. The story is nice and makes fun of the mafia while avoiding to minimize the huge problem it was and it is even today. Too bad the good aspects end here. The main problem here are the actors: almost every actor in the movie performed poorly, and I guess most of them aren't actors at all. This could be good if the "non- actors" would have had smaller or easier parts, but as it is, it doesn't work at all. Sorry to say the biggest letdown were the kids. There is a constant amateur vibe and continuous poor delivery of performances. The directing is better but still quite mediocre, and do very little to compensate the dreadful actors.

Pierfranceso di Liberto (in arte Pif) has pulled off a remarkable achievement with this film. It centers on Arturo, a middle-class boy living in Palermo in the 1970s-1980s who gradually comes to awareness of the murderous evil of La Cosa Nostra. His dawning awareness, and his moral awakening, parallel that of his city, whose residents would have preferred to have ignored the cancerous presence of the Mafia, but the brazen murders of so many of the Mafia's opponents -- honest politicians, magistrates, journalists -- forced them to confront it. That, and the amazing victories of the magistrates Falcone and Borsellino in prosecuting these monsters; tragically, they were both murdered shortly after the obtained convictions of some 300 criminals. Diliberto's protagonist Arturo initially is fascinated both by the mobbed-up premier Giulio Andreotti, and believes Andreotti's -- and his parents' lies about the mafia not existing in Sicily. (Andreotti, the protector of mafiosi, liked to say that the problem of organized crime existed only in Campania and Calabria.) The film's tonal balance is remarkable; at times it is hilariously funny; at others, heartbreaking. As the mafia crimes escalate, one feels despair, but at the film's marvelous conclusion, hope is restored. La mafia uccide solo in estate is without doubt one of the best films ever made about the scourge of Cosa Nostra.