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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 25 JUNE 2017 38 This Week BRUTAL reality and wistful day- dreaming are combined into a powerful collage of the fairy-tale idiom and political rage in the sophomore feature by Sicilian writer-director duo Antonio Pi- azza and Fabio Grassadonia. Sicil- ian Ghost Story debuted this year at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes, and made its way to our shores last week courtesy of the Valletta Film Festival, and builds on Piazza and Grassadonia's debut anti-mafia feature Salvo (winner of the Grand Prix – Semaine de la Critique at Cannes in 2013) to fur- ther explore the insidious nature of the Sicilian underworld. Taking its cue from the shock- ing real-life murder of a young boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo (1981- 1996), Piazza and Grassadonia spin a slowly unfolding but deeply affecting tale of innocence merci- lessly crushed by the long hand of organised crime, as Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez) is punished for his father's betrayal of the Si- cilian mafia's code of silence after he agrees to turn state's evidence – thus becoming a 'pentito' in the eyes of his former colleagues. Giuseppe, however, has a cham- pion in his resilient classmate Lu- na (Julia Jedlikowska), who refuses to give in to her community's pas- sive acceptance of Giuseppe's dis- appearance – butting heads with her arch and unforgiving mother (Sabine Timoteo) in particular – and sets about searching for him on her lonesome when all other avenues prove fruitless. 'The mafia from a kid's point of view' trope is a narrative road as rife with danger as anything Little Red Riding Hood – whose trademark garment is also wryly referenced in the film's final act – may have faced. But far from sugar-coating the realities of the historical episode that inspires their film (whose fairy-tale layer is largely sourced from a short story by Marco Mancassola), Piazza and Grassadonia use it to give the audi- ence a narrative ballast, but also to address the universal way in which such timeless forms of storytelling express the universal dynamics of desire and memory. Aided by superlative photogra- phy from Luca Bigazzi – which makes full use of Sicily's stunning natural landscape to help cast a haunting spell worthy of only the darkest material in the oeuvre of the Grimms, Basile or Perrault – the film eschews all cliché and shorthand by employing the fun- damental tools of cinema to create a sense of both dread and wonder. This does result in a bit of a slow- moving first half, establishing what is essentially a coming-of- age story for Luna while switching back and forth to Giuseppe's pun- ishing ordeal – the latter of which offers very little relief or cathar- sis in the short term. But as the would-be young couple's dreams stretch out onto the film's broad canvas with increased intensity and yearning, the film's resilient commitment to its ambitious con- ceit is what wins you over. Because this isn't a 'high con- cept' fantasy film that stitches to- gether a facile generic collage with clever editing, handy expository dialogue and a pre-cooked for- mula calibrated to get a rise out of the audience without disturbing them too much. Rather, Sicilian Ghost Story eases the audience's experience of this horrific episode, not by papering it over with niceties and wishful thinking (though the characters themselves do their fair share of that), but by using the rudiments of the art to amplify its power to provide beauty and meaning. Cavernous and wood- land settings establish the other- wordly nature of the experience from the beginning, with animal symbolism used liberally to sign- post the characters' universe in a way that pays off handsomely by the end (Piazza and Grassado- nia are nothing if not disciplined storytellers). So that, despite the young cast consisting entirely of non-actors – in a way that adds to the lived-in feel rather than feel- ing like a gimmick – the firm grasp over the mise-en-scene builds into a hypnotic portrait of the desire for a better world, even if the odds are clearly stacked against Luna and her mission. A deeply political film that chan- nels its politics through a timeless storytelling format, and a 'fairy- tale' movie that draws on the tra- dition's deepest core rather than any digestible, bowdlerized ver- sion, Sicilian Ghost Story is an unflinching tour de force in which the filmmakers confirm that beau- ty and ugliness are not mutually exclusive values. Sicilian Ghost Story was screened on June 19 and 20 as part of the Valletta Film Festival IN CINEMAS TODAY Embassy Cinemas Valletta Tel. 21 227436, 21 245818 Transformers: The Last Knight 3D (12A) 10:15, 14:00, 17:30, 20:40 Valletta Film Festival 14:00, 16:00, 18:00, 20:30 Baywatch (15) 16:10, 18:40, 21:10 Wonder Woman (12A) 10:30, 14:30, 18:00, 20:55 Pirates of the Caribbean: Sala- zar's Revenge 2D (12A) 10:30, 14:15, 18:00, 20:45 The Mummy (15) 10:25, 13:45, 16:10, 18:35, 21:00 Valletta Living History (U) 10:00, 10:45, 11:30, 12:15, 13:00, 13:45, 14:30, 15:15 Eden Cinemas St Julian's Tel. 23 710400 Wonder Woman (12A) 11:00, 14:00, 18:00, 20:45, 23:30 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (U) 11:20, 14:10, 16:15, 18:20, 20:30, 22:40 Churchill (PG) 11:20, 14:10, 16:05, 18:10, 20:30, 22:25 Berlin Syndrome (TBA) 11:25, 14:05, 16:30, 18:50, 21:15, 23:40 The Mummy (15) 11:30, 14:00, 16:25, 18:50, 21:15, 23:40 Baywatch (15) 11:30, 14:00, 16:25, 18:50, 21:15, 23:45 Wonder Woman (12A) 12:00, 14:45, 17:30, 20:15, 23:00 Pirates of the Caribbean: Sala- zar's Revenge 2D (12A) 13:30, 16:00, 18:30, 21:00 Transformers: The Last Knight (12A) 14:00, 17:15, 20:30 The Boss Baby (U) 14:10, 16:20, 18:30 The Other Side of Hope (TBA) 14:10, 18:35 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (12A) 14:25, 17:50, 20:50 The Shack (12A) 14:30, 18:10, 20:55 Dough (TBA) 16:30, 20:50 King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (12A) 20:45 Empire Cinemas Bugibba Tel. 21 581787, 21 581909 King Arthur: Legend of the Sword 2D (12A) 15:55, 21:00 Pirates of the Caribbean: Sala- zar's Revenge 2D (12A) 10:30, 13:15, 15:55, 18:35, 21:15 Wonder Woman 2D (12A) 11:10, 14:00, 18:20 Wonder Woman 3D (12A) 21:10 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (U) 11:15, 14:00, 18:30 Baywatch (15) 10:50, 13:30, 16:05, 18:40, 21:15 The Mummy (15) 11:00, 13:35, 16:00, 18:30, 21:00 The Shack (12A) 10:35, 13:15, 15:55, 18:35, 21:15 Transformers: The Last Knight 3D (12A) 11:00, 14:00, 18:15, 21:15 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ GHOST STORIES ★ ★ ★ ★ GHOST IN THE SHELL ★ ★ ★ GHOST IN THE MACHINE ★ ★ GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT ★ EMPTY VAPOURS FILM By Teodor Reljic SICILIAN GHOST STORY (TBA) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The uses of enchantment: Luna (Julia Jedlikowska) and Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez) use dreams as a way to cope with harsh realities in the moving and ambitious sophomore release from Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia The ghost of hope in a fallen world