VENICE. The early 1970s. The Calabrian crime organization, the 'ndrangheta, is spreading across the country, growing in power and influence from south to north. Antonio Zagari is a multiple assassin and son of Giacomo, a Calabrian boss transplanted to Lombardy, who realizes he's not suited to the life: killing has become an unbearable and physical burden. He is repulsed by blood, a disgust that is first physical then moral. Ammazzare Stanca, presented in the Spotlight section of the Venice 82 Film Festival, is the new film from Daniele Vicari, starring Gabriel Montesi, Vinicio Marchioni, Selene Caramazza, Andrea Fuorto, Thomas Trabacchi, Cristiana Vaccaro, and Rocco Papaleo as Don Peppino Pesce. The film is inspired by the life of Zagari who wrote a memoir while in prison, he later died in an accident in 2004.
Gabriel Montesi approached the character by moving "from the element of the body to the element of wonder, that is, of discovery, of human feeling; this allows him to break a pattern, a familiar one, and somehow find his own way out". In a moment of history when his peers were protesting in factories, universities, and public squares, Antonio grows disillusioned with the exercise of power and his father's ferocity. He has to find the courage to stand up to his father and plot a revenge against him that is worse than death, revealing the truth. After a life of murder, robbery and kidnap, he is sent to prison while in his early twenties. There, he decides to put a stop to it all, he does so by writing.
Written by Daniele Vicari and Andrea Cedrola, the film is loosely based on Antonio Zagari's autobiography, Ammazzare stanca, a book the director read as research for the criminal world of his previous film, The Past is a Foreign Land.
He explains that the book so captivated him that he made it into a film: “I've always believed that cinema is born out of reality, real life is dirty, full of contradictions, where the positive and negative intermingle. In this sense, this book is full of life. Antonio Zagari's life is one of the most absurd and contradictory imaginable, repulsive even. It is told in a book so sincere that it is at times repellent. There are scenes that are difficult to digest: violent, sexist, racist. It's a profoundly human story, the story of a boy who realizes he's not free; and from the moment he realizes it, he is capable of exploding the entire criminal organization. He frees himself from it by writing.”
Vinicio Marchioni, who plays Zagari’s father, the boss from whom he must free himself, explained how he constructed his character; in part with help from the relationship with his mother who has Calabrian roots: "I discovered that what we call silence in Southern Italy is actually the inability to verbalize feelings. Even when they are suffering, people won't speak. In rehearsal, we created an 'animal', rather than a human being: someone willing to sacrifice his children, who doesn't relate to them as we do today. I see him as a character without contradictions, perhaps the simplest, but also the most complicated, character for an actor. As I played him through the story, I kept wondering how to make him react to the loss and pain awaiting him. For me, it was like taking an animal, a wild boar, out of a certain environment, and moving it elsewhere."
Filming lasted eight weeks. The film was shot in Emilia-Romagna: Pianoro, Bologna, Marzabotto, Grizzana Morandi, Zola Predosa, San Lazzaro di Savena, Sasso Marconi, Casalecchio; and Calabria: Lamezia Terme, Spezzano Della Sila, Camigliatello Silano, San Luca, Bovalino.
Produced by Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Manetti Bros., the film is a Mompracem production with Rai Cinema, and received support from the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission and in collaboration with the Calabria Film Commission.
"From a production standpoint, we developed it by trying to combine ambition and common sense", Pier Giorgio Bellocchio noted, "while staying within sustainable budget parameters. We succeeded, thanks also to the Film Commissions. We relocated the Varese area to Sila and created some Northern Italian locations in Bologna, thanks to the meticulous work of the Film Commissions and the consolidated relationships with them, which, like Mompracem, we have been cultivating for years."