The Mafia Kills Only in Summer

Director/writer/actor Pif (Pierfrancesco Diliberto), a famous Italian television personality, brings his story he wrote with Michele Astori and Marco Martanito the screen with a terrific degree of freshness in dealing with a subject that has always been subterranean and dark - the Mafia of Palermo, Sicily. Working on what appears to be a tight budget as far as cast and crew are concerned Diliberto brings this little gem to life in a most memorable manner.

The story is based on facts - but lightened with a fine sense of comedy that make the facts seem even more brutal: the dichotomy between the history and the comedic translation is intentional. The story begins with the inception of Arturo (Diliberto once he has grown to a man) in an inventive marriage of computer generated graphic art and reality based activity. From birth through twenty years we follow Arturo as a child as he views the workings of the Mafia and that intuitive response or observation follows him through young life into the position of a young man deeply infatuated with his girlfriend Flora. The charm of Arturo's coming of age is balanced by the film's mocking Mafia Bosses and restoring the generosity of the heroes of the Anti-mafia. The period was a time of 'see no evil/hear no evil' in Palermo, a city where denial was coupled with stifled tolerance, as the now infamous war for Mafia supremacy filled the air (and the streets) was accompanied by regular assassinations of rival mobsters and anti-Mafia crusaders.

Despite the potentially grim subject, the film is paced (or laced) so gently that the overriding effect is about love in a time of chaos managed beautifully by Pierfrancesco Diliberto. It sparkles like the beauty of the waters surrounding Sicily. In Italian with English subtitles.

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.

I beg to disagree with almost everyone on this one. There is nothing overtly 'artistic' about this movie. It treats real, tragic events with total superficiality and no feelings. The mafia bosses are pathetic caricatures, not bloodthirsty killers and cutthroat businessmen. It all looks like a 'see no evil, hear no evil do-good- er' cartoon...

I was there in those years, and I can assure everyone, there was nothing even remotely funny or entertaining in the affairs pictured in the movie. In this film everything is pictured as if it was all a joke, as if the dead weren't really dead, as if the mafia was a bunch of unruly kids, and nothing 'really' ever happened. Well, it all might be good in today's politically correct environment where all is forgotten and forgiven, but as I said at the beginning of this review, I beg to disagree...

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.

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.