Against a heavy cloak of secrecy, a 12-year-old girl smitten with her handsome classmate ventures deeper and deeper into the enchanted Sicilian forests to find him, unaware of just how thick is the mystery behind his strange disappearance. Read more …
Bewildering in all the right ways, this is a poetic, sublime interpretation of a sorry story. An evocative, emotional experience, it pits humanity against inhumanity, resulting in something refreshingly new.
Quietly evocative of the dreamlike state of childhood, Sicilian Ghost Story is a melancholy poem to the part of us we can’t allow to be wrung out by the complacency and compliance of adulthood.
Although Sicilian Ghost Story is overlong and often challenging in its fusion of styles, it remains a touching testimony to the power of love in a climate of cruelty.
Sicilian Ghost Story is affecting and original - and it has a political kick too. This is a Mafia movie in which the only point of view that matters is that of the kids.
The results are hard-going but grimly compelling.
It’s a film whose initial charge of mystery and intensity dissipates over its running time, the narrative impetus slows, and there is that question of tone that is very much not solved by the revelation at the end. These drawbacks are offset by the directors’ terrific confidence and visual style.
Grim and mean.
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Friday August 17, 2018, until Thursday August 23, 2018. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
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