The Sicilian Girl

By Lindsey Mulla

This week I watched the movie The Sicilian Girl, the picture of the movie captured my attention and it seemed like it would be a great movie. It turned out to be incredible with a hearth retching story based on Rita Mancuso, who is a bratty 11-year –old, who idolizes her father Don Michele, an old-school Mafioso who defends the neighbors from less gentleman wiseguys.

The movie is based of the brief life of Rita Atria, who grows from an 11-year old to a Sicilian teenager. She embodies a courageous soul, which is reckless and determined. With no attempts to back down as she brings forth a stack of journals that capture the cases that the mafia has been guilty of committing in Sicily all these years. She wants revenge against the culprits for smearing her father’s blood upon her white christening gown, and then taking the life of her brother.  Rita shares her detailed journals with law enforcement to seek vengeance in the only way she knows how.

The director amplifies the intense story line by holding on to the frames that dip in like paintings smeared with corners and light streams of light that touch the subject from time to time. The placement, the setting from night to day creates this phenomenal world that is convincing and dissects the scenes with intense imagery. Creating a potent match for dialogue and flavorful photography. I have been so blown away by this movie, for the truth, the direction of the photography, how an artistic potency creeps upon such a disturbing fiction.

When further looking into this movie, I found some background information on the director.

According to the DailyBeast.com the movie

“The Sicilian Girl is the first foray into fiction for writer-director Marco Amenta, a Sicilian photojournalist and documentarian. However, it is not Amenta’s first film about Rita Atria, the Sicilian folk hero/villain (depending on whom you ask) who shattered the omertà code of silence in 1991 and gave testimony to Italian law enforcement, resulting in dozens of convictions. Amenta told the story in his award-winning 1998 documentary, Diario di una siciliana ribelle, which he says was difficult to film because many people were afraid to speak on camera. Amenta made The Sicilian Girl in the hope that Rita Atria would take her rightful place in history and pop culture alongside esteemed anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were both murdered in 1992.”

It’s no wonder that the cinematography and movie direction is from the mastermind of the director who is a photojournalist. It justifies the creation of such a beautifully intense movie.