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Rating: Let's be honest, when film or television crews set foot in Sicily, 90% of the time it's to shoot the usual mafia film from the usual perspective of law enforcement versus mafia apparatus, and we are quite tired of this by now.
Instead, Marco Risi's "Forever Mary" breaks away from this theme, focusing on the reality of Sicilian youths who have to deal with rampant omertà and a lack of work, which leads them to delinquency and trouble, with a society and a State almost absent in their role as moral and conscientious educators.
Risi paints a Palermo stripped of everything and degrading, even too much, an underlying pessimism that accompanies the narration of the various stories of these young people forced for different reasons to live together within the Malaspina prison of the Sicilian capital. A not very welcoming place judging by its interiors as well as the at times excessive violence of the prison guards.
Critics have spoken of neorealism to emphasize certain stylistic and expressive standards reminiscent of Italian neorealism of the '40s.
Among the peculiarities of the film, we must remember the use of Sicilian dialect alongside Italian, giving that particular folk touch with its characteristic slang, as well as the authentic settings of the film except for the prison interiors.
It should also be noted that we are not facing professional actors, but the young people were taken from the streets and came from difficult situations. Despite this, they manage quite well in their inexperience, being quite characterized, among which how can we not remember the famous figure of Carmine Sperandeo (Francesco Benigno), the bully of the moment, the leader and brain guiding the actions of the young ones inside Malaspina, or the introversion, maladjustment of Claudio Catalano (Maurizio Prollo), a sort of last wheel of the cart inside the prison, or yet the transsexual Mary (Alessandra Di Sanzo), sometimes vulgar when tender, and who arouses compassion for her human story. Despite everything, there is also time for some healthy revelry as demonstrated by the mythical King Kong, famous for his cartoon-style facial expressions and his daredevil nature.
They are joined by two established actors including Claudio Amendola (here as the handsome and damned boy) and Michele Placido, excellent and worthy of applause in the role of a teacher from the North, who despite his qualifications is content to teach inside the prison, and whom the boys at first will see with hostility simply because he represents the State and the law. Despite this, over time, the wind will partly change, and the teacher who represents the desire for change and democracy, with his particular lessons, will at least partially and with difficulty manage to make the boys think. Although it will probably be difficult to go back and break free from a sub-mafia culture that now conditions their thoughts and actions and pervades their minds.
As demonstrated by the final image full of meaning, despite adverse fate, despite suffering, something can still be done, nothing is yet compromised.
They can strip you of everything but not of the perhaps illusory hope that tomorrow will be another day. Even though sometimes reality has been far more cruel and dramatic for some of these young people than for their cinematic counterparts.
"I'll always be like this, neither man nor woman, neither fish nor flesh, only Mery, Mery forever"
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