de facto film reviews 3.5 stars

Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara, is an historical drama based on the 1858 case of a Bolognese Jewish family whose six-year old son, Edgardo, was forcibly removed from their home because of the dictate that any Christian child must be raised by a Christian family. This came to pass because, when Edgardo was an infant, and very sick, the housekeeper had secretly baptized him. Years later, confessing this act, she set off the events of the movie. The director, Marco Bellocchio, frames the film almost as a real-life horror film, because, for the family, and, early on for Edgardo, it most certainly was.

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The facts of the case are disputed. Indeed, the film gives doubt to the claims the child was baptized by making clear that such abductions were a way of forcing Jewish families to convert. Yet, if court documents are to be believed, the child was indeed secretly baptized and thus, according to the cruel papal laws governing the Papal States, taken to be raised as a Catholic. Eventually, this included coming to live with Pius IX, the pope who was then under enormous pressure by what would become the reorganization of the Italian states. That the film only late and briefly, goes into detail on this aspect of the story, is a missed opportunity, but the emotional core is the struggle of Edgardo’s parents to right this wrong, and of Edgardo himself to come to terms with what amounts to brainwashing. The film proceeds over many years, through court cases and scenes of schoolings and counsels, as events seem to march inexorably to their end.

The film does provide villains, in the form of clergy and antisemitic caretakers for Edgardo. The main tension here is between faith and teaching, between tradition, choice and conformity. This is a highly emotional film that relies largely on slightly outsized acting and the gravity of the facts within the case. Bellocchio, having mounted a lavish recreation of the era in which the case takes place, allows his actors to go for broke. These are heightened yet never overwrought portrayals. There are clear villains, and there is a scene of clear fantasy, but the work is rooted in emotional truth.

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For a film that is well over two hours in length, it never drags, and keeps moving from event to event in a way which the audience can keep up. You are shown at least as much as you are told and while much of the parents struggle to see or free their child is initially viewed through the father, it is Edgardo’s mother that eventually takes center stage. A less capable actress would have lost the thread under a mountain of theatrics, yet here Barbara Ronchi does the heaviest lifting with subtle use of her eyes and her voice. Her final scene is nearly all eyes and voice, and it is chilling, convincing and damning. She is matched by a fine Fausto Russo Alesi as Solomone, Edgardo’s father, and Ena Sala, as Edgardo. Joining them is the truly wretched Pius the IX, played with hissable, hateful aplomb by Paolo Pierobon.

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This is a film that is dense and emotional but is not going to strain one’s intellect, yet is not a simplistic film. This is not a puzzle box, or a film rife with symbolism and philosophy in the way a Bergman, Tarkovsky or Fellini, for instance, would be. This is also not the first time the director has taken on the Catholic church, which is done here with great potency. Indeed, you may need to check your blood pressure. The film carries with it a sense of righteous anger, and that may transfer to the viewer, depending on how invested one becomes in the proceedings. It is, easily, one of the most emotionally wrenching works of the year.

Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara is now available on all digital platforms.