6 days ago
The Kingdom review: Riveting, quietly devastating crime saga reinvigorates the Mafia movie
The Kingdom
Director
:
Julien Colonna
Cert
:
None
Genre
:
Crime
Starring
:
Ghjuvanna Benedetti, Saveriu Santucci, Anthony Morganti, Andrea Cossu, Frédéric Poggi
Running Time
:
1 hr 48 mins
Lesia, the 15-year-old heroine of Julien Colonna's riveting crime saga, is hoping to go on a date with Fabien, a local shop boy, when she is instead deposited in a safehouse with her dad. 'Nobody tells me anything,' she pouts.
The teenager, played with arresting naturalism by the newcomer Ghjuvanna Benedetti, is perennially met with silence or deflection as she slowly realises the extent of her family's lawlessness.
Set against the volatile backdrop of 1990s Corsica, this taut, quietly devastating film subverts the swagger of mob patriarchs or muscle-bound enforcers. Colonna, who is also its writer, gives us the adolescent daughter of a reclusive gang leader whose summer holiday takes a dark detour when she's abruptly delivered to her father's hideout.
Lesia's journey from a flirtatious, curious adolescent to someone caught in the moral quicksand of her father's world unfolds as a series of violent television news reports, newspaper cuttings and overheard conversations about car bombs. Sneaking around the morgue earns Lesia a horrific glimpse of her late godfather's decimated head.
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Pierre-Paul (Saveriu Santucci), her father, has long been an ambiguous, occasional presence in her life: a fugitive and feared mobster to most, he's a tender idol to his daughter, a tactile, protective dad who teaches her how to make fish soup or criticises her driving skills.
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During a heartfelt daddy-daughter exchange, he laments his failings as a father, shortcomings demanded by the cycle of violence that characterises his life. 'No, I can't be by your side at your mother's deathbed,' he says.
Their bond, strained by absence and secrecy, is intensified under siege as a mob war heats up. As tensions and paranoia spiral, so too does Lesia's understanding of what it means to live in the orbit of criminality and retribution.
The ominous, sun-drenched Corsican landscape mirrors the uneasiness of every interaction. For all the familial complications on screen, The Kingdom neither mythologises nor tempers the Mafia. Violence is used sparingly, yet it lingers in the margins of everyday mob dinners, boar hunts and bulletproof vests.
The tragic cycle is composed of the same beats that defined such superior films as
The Godfather
and
Animal Kingdom
. But the tight focus on Lesia, and her realisation that the men she loves are also capable of monstrous things, reinvigorates the familiar form.
