La mafia uccide solo d'estate

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.

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.

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.

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...