Damiano Damiani
Un Uomo In Ginocchio

"Un uomo in ginocchio" is the title of a film shot in Palermo by Damiano Damiani, in 1979. The main actors are Giuliano Gemma and Michele Placido. It tells the dramatic story of Nino Peralta (played by Gemma), a father of two children who is constantly conditioned by a precarious economic situation, as well as a past of being an ex-convict. Peralta runs a kiosk opened with his wife’s money, with help in the job also coming from his son and an equally penniless friend named Colicchia. One day, near the kiosk he manages, a woman’s prison is discovered, escaped from the kidnapping by a mafia gang, which had lasted several weeks: however, the woman is the wife of one of the most important Cosanostra bosses in the city of Palermo, Don Vincenzo Fabbricante. Things get further complicated when the police find a cup belonging to the bar managed by Peralta, which made deliveries to the place of the kidnapping, not knowing its dramatic truth. With the discovery of the cup, Fabbricante also adds his name to the list, condemning him to certain death, believing him to be an accomplice of the kidnappers, and thus sending someone named Platamona (Placido) to kill him. Promptly spurred by his friend Colicchia, Peralta discovers the face and identity of this person, opening the door to a complex web of interests and power plays that will force him to climb back up the moral slope to ensure his survival and not see his family destroyed, sometimes forcing him to face his past as a criminal and his own conscience, devastated by the nightmare of poverty and oppressive silence.

This film, although practically snubbed by critics of the time and the audience itself, has been re-evaluated over time, especially with the tragic events that have sadly infested the chronicles of our press concerning the mafia: its greatness in my opinion is the labyrinthine web that Nino Peralta must confront, constantly tense and frustrated in his search for the salvation of body and soul, threatened by a power, the mafia, that altogether deteriorate his life, family, and dignity. This is indeed a very dark film, characterized by outstanding cinematography and a cast absolutely worth noting though not flawless. The dialogues between Giuliano Gemma and Michele Placido are especially memorable, particularly the final one, on a wintery and grim plateau that characterizes the ultimate channeling of a film that is constantly apprehensive, decadent and at the same time aimed at hiding a creeping hope of spiritual redemption.

In this movie, it is Man who is analyzed under a microscope, not just any man, but the Sicilian man, in a Sicily brutally controlled by mafias, which hold control over everything, from materials to people themselves: human beings forced to act as pawns in a game bigger than them, in the hands of a few greedy murderers. Both Giuliano Gemma and Michele Placido had the chance to showcase their extraordinary skills, albeit in different ways with this cinematic trial: the former, especially for bringing the spotlight back on himself, thanks to a performance on the brink of character acting, perfectly successful and adding even more fame to the extraordinary acting ability he had already created with legendary characters such as Ringo, and all the spaghetti-westerns that seemed to have almost concluded his career; the latter instead, for having definitively consecrated himself to demanding roles, which will lead him to be employed in later years for TV films and real movies, which will then make him known to the general public eventually (think of La Piovra). Noteworthy are also the parts of Tano Cimarosa in the role of the bungling but loyal Colicchia, and Manni, a perfect mafia boss; a bit underwhelming, albeit not at all unfit, is the role of the beautiful Eleonora Giorgi, still good at not stepping out of the difficult role of wife and mother, managing to provide more emotional tension to the film.

To conclude, this is a film with great descriptive capabilities of a reality that may seem dead and buried, but that actually still "crawls" on its knees, in an Italy that believes it has "overcome" the mafia massacres and terrorism of ominous memory.