Il silenzio dell'allodola (2005)

Director:

David Ballerini

Writer:

David Ballerini

Stars:

Ivan Franek, Marco Baliani, Anna Maria Gherardi

Cast

Credited cast:
Ivan Franek	...	Bobby Sands
Marco Baliani	...	Capo dei secondini
Anna Maria Gherardi	...	Madre di Bobby
Alberto Caneva	...	Secondino incriminato
Fabio Troiano
Augusto Zucchi	...	Special Corps Inspector
Pietro Ragusa	...	Secondino pentito
Flavio Bucci	...	Direttore del carcere
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Alberto Hoiss

Storyline

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

10 June 2005 (Italy)

Filming Locations:

Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Esperia Film, Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (MiBAC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

User Reviews

An important story muddled with gratuitous bigotry

The movie purports to tell the story of Bobby Sands, a North Irish Catholic who was tortured and abused by British forces, and died in a hunger strike. That much is historical fact and stated at the beginning of the film, so the plot and ending have no surprises. It's an important story that deserves better treatment than this movie provides, despite the best intentions of the director. The story is laden with heavy-handed religious imagery comparing Bobby Sands to John the Baptist, and the prison warden to Herod. The Warden with a hook nose and long, stringy hair comes off as a very insulting Jewish stereotype. There is also a scene where he is sexually involved with one of the guards who offers to get for him another guard, making the villain a homophobic stereotype as well as an anti-Semitic caricature.

One positive aspect of the film is that the brutal violence in the prison is only shown "around the edges," not graphically exploited as it would likely be in an American production, but made just clear enough to know that the prisoners suffered horribly. It's a nice bit of subtlety in an otherwise bigoted and cack-handed effort of religious allegory.