‘Kidnapped’ Review: Sins Of Holy Fathers Remain Unforgiven In Marco Bellocchio’s Authoritative Historical Drama – Cannes Film Festival
deadline.comIn 1857, 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara was stolen from his Jewish family to be raised in a Catholic seminary on the spurious grounds that a maid had secretly baptized him in the cradle.
As documented with theatrical extravagance by Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio in Kidnapped (Rapito), it is a story of such unmitigated wickedness that it initially would be hard to believe if it were not meticulously referenced with times, dates and locations reminding us that although this cinematic opera does not have the feel of documented fact, Bellocchio can verify every twist in the tale, chapter and verse.
Ultimately, this serves his larger purpose, which is to wind the Mortara family’s trials into the bloody story of Italy’s unification as a secular state.
The Mortara are bourgeois Jews living in a pleasant street in Bologna. Family life includes nightly prayers with their eight children and the ritual observances of Shabbat dinners, but the local community doesn’t seem to mind.
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