Based on the novel of the same name by Leonardo Sciascia.
The film by Emidio Greco is mastered by Gian Maria Volontè’s intense interpretation of professor Franzò, the omnipresent “witness” of the ills of his land, generalised to include the ills of the whole of Italy by the director, as well as the author who inspired him. This is a bitter work, not lacking its streak of fatalism, which seems to deny rather than “investigate the possibilities still open to justice”, in a country where corruption is presented as a common malady, that no one can escape. And yet, it is a film that can shake consciences and lead viewers to reflect on why the malignant roots of a potential profiteer and a potential criminal lurk in each of us. A spontaneous hypothesis comes to mind, which is only quietly implied by the director, but clearly explicit in Leonardo Sciascia’s main pages, which is: to be “someone forced to think in a universe of non-thinkers”; but also to formulate a healthy resolution, that is, not to live among those for whom “hope is not the last to die, but death is the last hope”, as professor Franzò is made to say, with a kind of lucid despair, both by Sciascia and Greco.
On the evening of St. Joseph’s Eve, the elderly diplomat Giorgio Roccella, who has not been in town for many years, calls the Monterosso police because he has found something strange in his isolated villa. The sergeant would go immediately to check, but the inspector tells him to wait for the next day, because the phone call could be a joke, and not to look for him anyway, as he will spend his day off in the countryside. But the following morning the sergeant and an agent find the owner’s body in the villa (killed by a Mauser, found next to him) and with his arm resting on a piece of paper, on which he has written: “I’ve found”. In addition, the many warehouses surrounding the courtyard are bolted with brand new bolts. The superintendent, the colonel of the carabinieri and the commissioner arrive, and the first hypothesis is that of a simple suicide. But the sergeant has no doubt it is a murder, neither does Professor Franzò, an old friend of the dead man, who claims to have received a visit from Roccella, just arrived in town, and later an alarmed call from him, as he had found the telephone line connected in his villa (without him knowing) and had found a valuable painting, disappeared long before. However, being on dialysis, Franzò could not immediately reach his friend who, in the meantime, died. The next day, since the train has been stationary in the countryside for a long time, the conductor asks a representative of medicines, who is driving nearby, to go and warn the stationmaster of the Monterosso station. But, since the traffic lights stay red, the conductor walks personally to the station, and he finds the stationmaster and the labourer killed. Meanwhile, the public prosecutor, a former student of Professor Franzò, who always considered him an inept, has also arrived. The drug representative then testifies that he has brought the message to the one who he believed to be the stationmaster, but he also saw two men rolling up the canvas of a picture.
At this point the inspector, during a survey of the villa that he declared he had never been to, immediately finds a hidden switch. So the next morning he tries to kill the sergeant, by shooting at him, but the sergeant saves himself and kills the superior. The authorities decide to dismiss the commissioner’s death as an accident. Now everything is clear. The commissioner, evidently involved in criminal activities, had killed Roccella, presenting himself at the villa as a policeman; the precious “goods”, which were kept there, had been transported at night to the small station, where there were accomplices, who were then killed, and the representative had not seen the two corpses. He leaves again, but he immediately realises that the face of a priest of the area, Father Cricco, is the one of the man he believed to be the stationmaster. He wants to go back to the police, but then he decides to continue the journey to avoid any trouble.
Genre: thriller – drama
Cast
Gian Maria Volonté: professor Carmelo Franzò
Massimo Dapporto: commissioner
Ennio Fantastichini: police commissioner
Ricky Tognazzi: brigadier Lepri
Massimo Ghini: representative of medicines
Paolo Graziosi: colonel of Carabinieri
Omero Antonutti: faher of Cricco
Gianmarco Tognazzi: son of Roccella
Luis Bacalov soundtrack
