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Il Traditore (The Traitor): a sobering film that lays bare a true story

On February 6th, the film that made people think and discuss during the film festival will be released in Swiss cinemas
Il Traditore (The Traitor): a sobering film that lays bare a true story
Il Traditore (The Traitor): a sobering film that lays bare a true story

It is the only Italian film in competition at Cannes, directed by Marco Bellocchio that shows with passion, pain, his testimony, on Cosa Nostra and traces the human existence before being criminal or procedural by Tommaso Buscetta, the most famous repentant mafia. Magnificent interpretation of Pierfrancesco Favino as the protagonist, of Fabrizio Ferracane (the diabolical Pippo Calò), of Fausto Russo Alesi in the role of Falcone and of Luigi Lo Cascio in the role of Totuccio Contorno (another repentant). The film is set in Sicily in the eighties, it talks about the life of the first great mafia repentant, who was the first to talk about the relationship between the state and organized crime. It is a biography of the last period of life of the man who was defined "The Boss of the two worlds", and the story almost immediately passes through the fundamental moment of the choice to collaborate with the Italian justice, making revelations so as to allow the arrest of 475 defendants. In those years it was a hard and ruthless war for the control of drugs underway between the mafia bosses divided between the Cosa Nostra and Corleonesi (of which Totò Riina is the leader). During a party at Stefano Bontate's house, Tommaso Buscetta warns of the danger of an imminent feud between the various mafia groups and so he decides to emigrate to Brazil to follow his business safely. The tensions did not take long to manifest themselves and the number of deaths of Mafia bosses and family members rises like a crazy counter. Buscetta's two sons and his brother are made to disappear, and he himself feels chased in Latin America, where the federal police recognize him and return him to the Italian state, ending up in the crosshairs of Corleonesi rivals.

Il Traditore Der Verräter cover

Judge Giovanni Falcone offers him to collaborate with justice, asking him for an indispensable testimony to frame the criminal mafia apparatus. Buscetta decides to make his contribution and in doing so the police are able to carry out hundreds of blitzes and arrests that destabilize the Cosa Nostra. In 1986 the maxi trial begins in Pelermo in which his direct opponent is not Riina but Pippo Calò, his childhood friend who denies knowing him. The mafia are convicted and swear revenge on Buscetta, who is placed under protection in the United States of America. In his absence from Italy, many of his uncensored relatives are killed in retaliation. The bomb explodes in Capaci and Buscetta will raise the bar by mentioning Andreotti: a tragic boomerang that will force him to flee Italy forever and live his last years undercover in the United States. The traitor is a film with a double meaning, because betrayal can be seen from the point of view of the Cosa Nostra, but it is also not so from the point of view of the first repentant Buscetta, for some a hero, for others an infamous, an opportunist of convenient but also a means to understand the hypocrisy of the justice system. It is from Buscetta's silences but also from his words that the meaning of a film is hidden which is not only a rigorous and documented historical reconstruction, but also a window that overlooks the mystery, contradictions and broken dreams of a protagonist that Bellocchio he never judges by pointing his finger at him and with which he is not ruthless but not even indulgent. If before the protagonist came and went between two worlds, with his betrayal he then became one who came and went between two walls, between the police headquarters where he was detained for talks with Falcone, and between the truth and the lie of his statements. Unmissable film, which contains a lot about the Italian political organization, between false truths and uncomfortable lies. It makes you think, maybe it even makes you suffer, because as in all beautiful things, there is always a bitter downside.

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