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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 01:16 |
Author Stile serves as a sort of narrative guide for the docu, which follows him around the city of Palermo as he revisits the scenes of some its more notorious episodes as well as interviewing important figures in the story. The journalist/Columbia University professor is accompanied on these travels by photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, whose grisly photographs, generous samples of which are included here, documented the carnage that was occurring at one point on nearly a daily basis.
The central focus of the film is the courageous efforts of crusading prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, whose efforts led to the so-called Maxi-Trials, in which hundreds of Mafia figures were tried amid unprecedented security measures in a concrete bunker courtroom. The two were subsequently assassinated in separate incidents just weeks apart in 1992.
Besides providing historical context regarding the Mafia's rise to power in Italy, the film also makes a strong case about its continued involvement in Italian political affairs, even going so far as to provocatively allege complicity on the part of the Silvio Berlusconi administration.
Despite its lapses into melodrama via Stile's sometimes overheated narration and Andra Pandolofo's strings-laden musical score, "Excellent Cadavers" is a generally sober and powerful portrait of a country held hostage by lawlessness.
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