THE MAFIA KILLS ONLY IN THE SUMMER by Pif

Pierfrancesco Diliberto a.k.a. Pif makes his feature film directorial debut The Mafia Kills Only in the Summer and in the process re-defines cinematic representation of the Italian mafia. The film is having its UK premiere in London tonight at a special event organised by Italian Cinema London.

In an international sense, most people will associate the word mafia with The Godfather. This is a fact that shows the power of cinema. While Coppola’s film is rightly celebrated as one of the finest films ever made in the history of American cinema, it has very little to do with modern history and even less to do with Italian mafia.

Thus, for The Mafia Kills Only in the Summer, Pif takes us to the Sicilian city of Palermo during the the years of lead, where mafia boss Toto Riina declared open war against the state, judges and anyone who dared to challenge his power and authority. This is also the home place of a boy whose coming of age means falling in love with a girl and at the same time awakening to the existence of the mafia.

The cleverness of the film is that this boy’s coming of age reflects the coming of age of a whole people. Around those times, Italians were aware of the mafia’s existence, yet it generally accepted by everyone that the less you knew about it, the better it was. As the film progresses, Pif pays tribute to the men who fought the dangerous fight of exposing the mafia for what it was, some of whom the young kid meets and who gradually have a great influence on his life despite media brainwashing that has him initially idolising controversial politicians such as Giulio Andreotti.

The approach employed by Pif is remarkable. The film could just as easily have been a melodrama. Alas, it is a comedy that is not only downright side splittingly hilarious a times, but perfectly balances the laughs with the drama and skilfully carries the weight of the importance of its cultural context. This to the point where one wonders whether this, finally admirably accessible and entertaining film about the mafia, may have a stronger impact on a wider audience than any of its predecessors. (Of course, this will depend on the type of worldwide distribution it will get.)

In a Chaplin like manner, comedy flourishes naturally out of the drama. This allows The Mafia Kills Only in the Summer to never, ever slip into tastelessness even when Pif takes particularly daring artistic freedoms. For instance, while Riina’s gang remains an important marginal element to the actual narrative, their inclusion in the film is a collection of black comedy gags that highlight the men’s ignorant, stubborn and perverse nature. As a polar opposite, he also makes use of genuine archive footage – some of which hadn’t been used by TV at the time – to legitimise his artistic choices. On top of this, the overall depiction of the setting can easily be traced to a Sicilian calmly reserved mentality and evasive nature – the type of place where the term omerta would originate.

Admittedly, with the film being split into two and the second part focusing on the central character as a young struggling journalist - still chasing after that obscure object of desire named Flora – the film becomes a little too stressed about narrative conventions and ending character development. Yet, this is perfectly understandable and universally acceptable in a film that used escapist tactics in an intelligent, meaningful and instantly impactful way.