The first surprise that awaits “The Rapture” – in the event that nothing is known about it before seeing it – lies in the fact that it deals with a true story in which Steven Spielberg has also been interested for a project not yet realized, “The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara”. Having seen Bellocchio’s version, the best thing that can be advised to our respected Steven is that he dedicate his time to other tasks, since his contribution to the Mortara matter is no longer necessary. Nothing he does can surpass in intensity this immense “The Rapture”. Whatever you try, you won’t know much.
The story of “The Rapture” It is brutal – the unpunished kidnapping of a Jewish child by the omnipotent Catholic Church of 19th century Italy, because the child was baptized (furtively and at night) by a devout maid – and that is how the veteran Italian director treats it. . With brio, with strength, with an unquestionable cinematographic sense of continuous action. A gale that overwhelms you, a lacerating drama, with devastating effects, about power and injustice that provokes impotence and rage in the incredulous viewer.
Bellocchio narrates without restrictions. He remembers another committed filmmaker of the same generation – six years separate them –, the Greek Costa-Gavras: they don’t care if you notice which foot they limp on. They are not for subtleties. And if on other occasions, we have reproached the filmmaker for a certain miscalculation in tone (as in the, on the other hand, notable “The traitor”), here Bellocchio intelligently takes advantage of the nightmarish dreams of the perpetrator of the infamy, Pope Pius IX, to give free rein to both his most vengeful humor and his most mischievous and playful register, which would have squeaked in the middle of the general gravity, but which find perfect accommodation in the context of the tight and suffocating arms of Morpheus around a Pius IX, who, embodied with diabolical dedication by Paolo Pierobon, emerges as an anthology villain.