Vanzi

We Still Kill the Old Way

Politics has been reduced to meaningless labels. Whether a fascist or a leftist, all you want to do is to hide behind a cloak of upholding the morale of our cruel world, but in the end we are all just humans, it is natural that our cockiness will rear its head and our true intentions show. We don't believe in what we preach, we just want to get closer and closer to that grieving widow, and in the end it is our funeral, no one will care when we are gone because we showed no compassion in life, a fate worse than death is to be erased from existence itself. Leonardo Sciascia's story turns the conventions of giallo novel on its head, it is a depressing look at the ineffectiveness of citizen investigation, how our delusion in our beliefs just end up clouding our better judgement. Elio Petri brings the film to life just so perfectly, his angry style and the way he commands the camera makes this film so beautiful yet violent, just like the island of Sicily itself. What an absolute masterpiece, just so damn effective at everything.

Vanzi

We Still Kill the Old Way

In line with the other Sicily-set mafia films of the 1960's, in a similar vein to The Day of the Owl. I absolutely love Elio Petri's style where he would move the camera through crowds, stopping at any important information on the way in a very fluid one take. The thing that I really do like about this era of mafia films is how absolutely paranoid it is. It does a fantastic job at showing a corrupt, capitalist society where people have to watch their every move. It is extremely different from the American style of mafia film (which I still love don't get me wrong) in that it is more focus on the common people and how their lives are affected by those in charge. I think the almost meta scene in the beginning is perfect where the characters are talking about a giallo novel and the twist at the end. In the real world, you are more likely to be killed for political reasons than an insane killer, an arguably more horrific reality.