SICILY THROUGH 6 MOVIES
In February 2021, Guide Collective contributor and Italian tour guide Susanna Perrucchini presented Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water in collaboration with GC Founder Sarah Murdoch.
With so much interest in the novel and a curiosity for Sicily from our GCBC members, Susanna has put together a compelling list of six essential movies set in Sicily to help our readership deepen the knowledge and appreciation of Sicilian culture.
Sicily is almost a world on its own , not only because it is an island but also because it attracted people from different and faraway lands, creating an incredible and amazingly rich melting pot .
This melting pot and its constant evolution over the centuries set the stage for an endless number of stories and plots. It’s no wonder that filmmakers and directors took inspiration from the deep historical roots.
As a movie-lover, I always thought that one of the best ways to get to know a place and a culture (apart from traveling) is to watch movies and read books. This list of movies could be endless, so I’ve made a selection of well-known and lesser-known movies staged in Sicily.
Classics
La Terra Trema ( The Earth Trembles ) is a 1948 movie by Luchino Visconti and was loosely adapted from Giovanni Verga’s novel, I Malavoglia. The story is set in Acitrezza , a fishing village on the east coast of Sicily and tells the story of misadventures and exploitation of a family of fishermen by local wholesalers. It shows with bitterness and realism the impossibility of improving this family’s economy, the unfairness of a society strictly based on classes where one lives and dies within the same social class—in this case, in poverty. It’s a reflection on the human condition and on the cruelty of destiny, always ready to punish those who have been already punished by life.
The Leopard, a 1963 movie based on a very famous novel by Tomasi di Lampedusa, was also directed by Luchino Visconti. It is the story of the slow decline of the local aristocracy due to the changes brought on by the unification of Italy in the 19th century. It is also a nostalgic portrait of a family through the words and thoughts of Don Fabrizio Salina, the noble Sicilian Prince, who sees how his world is falling apart. While it may portray the decline of Sicilian nobility, the movie has the overly sweet taste of a cassata cake …see “the Scene of the Ball.”
Hidden Gems
Corleone is a 1978 Italian movie and a classic Sicilian story on the mafia. It is a story of a friendship between Michele and Vito, the first will become a Trade Unionist and the other a Mafioso. Life will divide them and end with extreme consequences. Michele Placido and Giuliano Gemma portray the main characters.
Il Postino (The Postman), one of the most famous and beloved movies set in Sicily without any doubt, was directed by Michael Radford in 1994 and nominated for Best Picture for the 68th Academy Awards in 1995. It is the story of a friendship, the poet Pablo Neruda, who lives in exile in an island in southern Italy ( the island is Salina, one of the seven of the Eolian Islands ) and his personal postman. It is a delicate movie—a movie about love, friendship and the power of poetry .
Unfortunately, the actor Massimo Troisi, who played the role of the Postman, died at the young age of 41 from heart failure shortly after the movie was released. Troisi was a very famous actor and comedian and his death at the end of shooting was received as a real tragedy, almost like a national mourning.
A Sicilian Ghost Story, produced in 2017, was one of the true surprises of recent years. It is based on a true story, and an awful one. Giuseppe, the 13-year-old son of a “pentito” (or informant) named Santino di Matteo, was kidnapped and kept prisoner for 25 months and finally strangled and dissolved in acid. The movie is at once a punch in the stomach and also has the poetic dimension of a fairy-tale . The two directors (Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza) were able to combine the richness of a fairy tale and the obscenity of the mafia behavior, where the cruel reality is not an obstacle to express a delicate poem about young love. It is a little gem, unfairly ignored .
I want to finish with an Oscar winner movie ( Best Foreign Movie in 1990).
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (released as Cinema Paradiso in the US) was written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It is a tribute to his land, to friendship and to the love for cinema. It’s a must-see for whoever wants to get to know one of the most talented Sicilian directors. The movie was filmed near Palermo, set in the seaside village of Cefalu.
