Playing at the Kendall and Embassy theaters, Marco Bellocchio’s Italian drama recounts the dramatic true story of a Jewish boy’s forced conversion by the Catholic Church.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Set in the second half of the 19th century, when Bologna was still part of the Papal States under Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon) and the Catholic Church, Marco Bellocchio’s award-winning drama “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara” is a true heartbreaker. The film recounts the harrowing true story of 6-year-old Edgardo (Enea Sala as a boy), one of nine children in a middle-class Jewish family, who is forcibly taken from his home in June 1858. This occurs because a reprobate Catholic maid supposedly baptized him, and the Church insists the boy is now Christian and must be raised within the Church.
The boy’s mother, Marianna (Barbara Ronchi), a devout Jew, is devastated. The boy is terrified by the strangers trying to take him from his home. His father, Momolo (Fausto Russo Alesi), who at first sends his oldest son to bring their friends to the house, is frightened because of the power and reputation of the Church and its notably antisemitic Inquisition. Neighbors witnessing the abduction attempt to block the carriage that is taking Edgardo away. News of this outrage is reported in both Jewish and Catholic newspapers in Italy and spreads to Europe and the United States, turning Edgardo’s case into a cause célèbreIn one dramatically dubious scene, a delusional Pope dreams of Jews sneaking into his bedchamber to forcibly perform a circumcision on him. The Pope, pilloried in the press for his heartlessness, becomes even more determined to keep Edgardo away from his family. Later, an adult Edgardo (Leonardo Maltese) is forced by the Pope to lick a cross shape onto a stone floor after displeasing him.
The shades of “Oliver Twist,” “Alice in Wonderland” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped” are discernible here. The all-too-real Edgardo is spirited away to Rome in a boat piloted by nuns. But he is resourceful. He follows his father’s injunction to recite a Hebrew prayer every night. Edgardo’s father also gives the boy a small metal amulet. The villain of the piece, outside of borderline mad Pious IX, is an antisemitic “Father Inquisitor” named Feletti (a suitably reptilian Fabrizio Gifuni, “Hannibal”).
For his part, Edgardo befriends another student (Christian Mudu) and learns the Latin prayers and responses from him. Edgardo excels in his classes and takes pity on a fellow dormitory inhabitant (James Basham), who is dying a bit too picturesquely. The action is set against the backdrop of the Italian war for the unification of Italy, culminating in the violent 1870 capture of Rome.
Boasting a Bernard Herrmann-esque score by Fabio Massimo Capogrosso and darkly lush cinematography by Francesco Di Giacomo (“Martin Eden”), “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara,” which is based on the 1997 novel by David I. Kertzer, is the sort of historical spectacle we don’t see much of these days (although we have had a recent example in the Johnny Depp-starring, Maiwenn-directed “Jeanne du Barry”). “Kidnapped” features a child genuinely picked up by a “twister,” tossed upon the winds of fate, and transported to a strange, new world. Some of Bellocchio’s “Godfather”-like intercutting confuses or just does not work. Surrounded by depictions of martyred saints and a beautiful, graphic, life-size likeness of the Crucifixion, Edgardo removes the nails from Christ’s hands and feet and has a vision that will confound some film buffs. Young Sala is notably more sympathetic than adult Maltese in the role of Edgardo. But on the whole, “Kidnapped” is entirely engrossing and another damning piece of Catholic Church history. Non possumus, indeed.
‘Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara’
Rating: Not rated. Contains scenes of great anguish and some violence.
Cast: Paolo Pierobon, Barbara Ronchi, Enea Sala
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Writer: Bellocchio, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Edoardo Albinati
Running Time: 2 hours, 14 minutes
Where to Watch: Landmark Kendall Square, Embassy Theater Waltham
Grade: A-
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