“The Kidnapping”, the new film by Marco Bellocchio (“The Traitor”), was released this week in theaters and was very well received by the French press.
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After The Traitor (2019), centered on the journey of the famous repentant mafioso Tommaso Buscetta, Marco Bellocchio signs, with The Kidnapping, another ambitious film telling a fascinating true story: The Mortara affair, in which a six-year-old Jewish boy was kidnapped by the papal authorities in the 19th century to receive a Catholic education.
Released this week in theaters (after a presentation at the last Cannes festival), this historical drama was very well received by the French press, since its average is 4.1/5 (for 30 media).
WHAT IS IT ABOUT ?
In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. On the cardinal’s orders, they came to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child would have been baptized in secret by his nurse as a baby and the pontifical law is indisputable: he must receive a Catholic education.
Edgardo’s parents, upset, will do everything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion in liberal Italy and the international Jewish community, the Mortara’s fight quickly took on a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope refuse to return the child, to establish an increasingly wavering power…
WHAT THE PRESS THINKS…
According to Latest News from Alsace:
“Marco Bellocchio, one of the greatest living Italian filmmakers, creates a pamphleteering masterpiece against obscurantism, in a masterful production of sublime classicism.” Nathalie Chifflet 5/5
According to La Voix du Nord:
“Deceptively classic, this intimate fresco is dotted with operatic and moving sequences, filmed in chiaroscuro which sometimes gives them a baroque tone. The dramatic force of the story won us over.” (Christophe Caron) 5/5
According to Le Point:
“Handling the art of chiaroscuro like no one else, Marco Bellocchio, who accompanies his baroque melodrama with thunderous music, offers a superb fresco – the photo is magnificent – a true plea against all forms of fanaticism.” (Victoria Gairin) 5/5
According to Ecran Large:
“The Kidnapping is a historical fresco of absolute beauty, with heartbreaking family drama and fabulous ideas to dust off the classicism of the genre.” (Alexander Janowiak) 4/5
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According to L’Obs:
“That this very great film, completed by an incredible sequence where Edgardo gives up nothing, was ignored by the jury of the last Cannes Film Festival, is surprising. Too classic? Too formal? It doesn’t hold up for a moment.” (Sophie Grassin) 4/5
According to La Croix:
“From all this imagery, reinforced by the omnipresence of religious symbols, the film draws its oppressive character and makes it a success of the genre.” (Celine Rouden) 4/5
According to aVoir-aLire.com:
“Marco Bellocchio signs one of his best films with this historical drama subtly mixing lyricism and social criticism.” (Gérard Crespo) 4/5
According to Première:
“Everything is in place, magnificently composed and yet there is this feeling that the essential is missing. His staging only achieves transcendence in fits and starts. We would have liked to see Bellocchio like the Comencini of The Misunderstood, creating a great film about the brutality of the adult world seen through the eyes of a frightened and tormented child.” (Thomas Baura) 3/5