The good news first: Cadaveri eccellenti is now out on DVD. Which is how we came to see it again last night. - Second, my own two cents since I've just read the negative comments on the discussion boards, where people are actually wondering if this is the worst movie ever. No way! OK, my own approach to it was an uphill journey. First saw it ages ago because Tre fratelli and Cristo si è fermato a Eboli had impressed me. This one is quite different, and I didn't get a thing. Years later, I stumbled over the story it's based on: "The Context. A parody" by Leonardo Sciascia. Even readers only passingly familiar with Sciascia will realize that the baddies are never caught in his books, reflecting the realities of his native Sicily. Of all the books of his I've read, this one was the toughest, because evil is omnipresent and not identified with individuals. A parody perhaps, but a bitter one, and one he took a long time to finish because writing it distressed him. Rosi read it on a long journey and it hit him like lightning. Like Sciascia, he was interested in the ways power corrupts people. So that's what we have here: a relentless gallery of corrupt officials in every walk of life. Not only in the Mafia but also in the realms of politics, justice, the military and religion. Max von Sydow's character is as repellent as anything I've ever seen. The whole caboodle is not meant to be fully understood, and that's where a large part of that all-pervading sense of menace comes from. The locations are gorgeous - wish I knew where that bus stop was where Rogas watches the procession of high-and-mighties drive by. And those catacombs! Someone here said the location wasn't clearly identified, but given that both Sciascia and Rosi were Italian, and that the film features a map of Sicily rather prominently in one shot, I beg to differ. IMHO this is indeed Sicily. And bella Italia. Berlusconi may look more benign than certain of his predecessors but... oh, all right, all right, this ain't the Speaker's Corner. The rest is silence.
