News - Aug 29, 2022
There is no doubt that the Italian mob is an endemic plague, but it has always been grist for the film and TV mill, as evidenced by the gritty Naples-set TV series "Gomorrah," the country's chief export.
There has been a significant change in how Italian producers and talents have approached organized crime tropes that were once only associated with patriarchal history. These days, mob stories coming out of Italy are primarily written by women. Rather, the perspective is from the viewpoint of a woman.
For instance, Amazon recently launched an Italian original movie titled "Bang Bang Baby," which follows 16-year-old Alice Barone from 1980 to 1998, as she discovers by chance that her father is alive and a boss of a Calabrian crime organization known as the 'Ndrangheta.
A’Ndrangheta boss Nonna Guendalina Barone is also her paternal grandmother's adversary, and she joins the dark side of her family against the wishes of her mother. She bonds with Nonna Guendalina, against the wishes of her mother. Dora Romano plays the criminal granny, the woman well known to audiences outside of Italy for eating mozzarella out of her hands and spitting vulgarities in Paolo Sorrentino's "The Hand of God."
In the event that any vile bastard gets in the way, I will dissolve him in acid, so help me God!” At one point, Nonna Barone blurts out something. 'Bang Bang' is produced by Lorenzo Mieli, who also produced 'The Young Pope' and 'My Brilliant Friend,' which are loosely based on reality like 'Gomorrah'. The distinctive aspect of this series is that it presents the narrative from Alice's perspective.
In addition, Mieli was interested in the 'Ndrangheta because it is a matriarchal society, not a patriarchal one since it is widely known that women play an important role in the organization. The 'Ndrangheta is also the setting for the movie "Una Femmina - The Code of Silence," which was released in Berlin earlier this year with more gravitas than "Bang Bang."
The story revolves around Rosa, a young rebel who witnessed her mother being murdered by her uncle Tore. She learns from her grandmother that Tore forced Rosa to drink hydrochloric acid and die like a woman who has "talked too much."
The character of Rosa, played by Lina Siciliano, distills the voice of the many women who rebelled against the 'Ndrangheta and its rules in Lirio Abbate's book. Francesco Costabile, the film's director, describes "Una Femmina" as "a crime story told from a female perspective." He notes that "psychological grip, oppression, and domestic extortion are the foundations underlying Rosa's world.”
"A Chiara," the slice-of-life drama from Jonas Carpignano, which won the Directors' Fortnight award at Cannes in 2021 and was recently released by Neon in the U.S., also depicts a desire to escape the dreaded burden that comes with belonging to a 'Ndrangheta family.
