Marco Bellocchio directs a biographical film about a key character in the history of the fight against the Sicilian mafia during the 80s and 90s, Tommaso Buscetta, the so-called boss of two worlds who became the first repentant member of Cosa Nostra, whose collaboration with justice led to the arrest of hundreds of mafiosi and triggered a wave of repentants that practically dismantled the organization and the main Italian political parties at the time.
Far from being a hero, this Buscetta, who the film's title bluntly calls "the traitor", was a murderer, drug trafficker and member of a criminal organization who, when he found himself cornered by the justice system and abandoned by his supporters, decided to repent, tell everything and put himself in the service and under the protection of justice, living the rest of his life, approximately 16 years, at the expense of the State and under the North American witness protection program. All of this leads us to consider this status of repentance and the extent to which the ends justify the means in the fight against organized crime.
This is not about humanizing a sinister figure, because criminals are as human as other people. They are the result of the accumulation of circumstances that make human beings ambiguous, always oscillating between good and evil, between virtue and vice. Buscetta is not and does not consider himself a hero, just a survivor, who would like to die peacefully in his bed instead of being shot in the street, or in jail, despite all the mistakes he made in life.
If there is anything that this film adds to a theme as recurrent as that of the Sicilian Mafia, it is, in my opinion, the idea, rejected outright by Judge Falcone, but which Buscetta seems to believe until the last moment, that Cosa Nostra was an organization of honor and mutual aid, at some point in its history, which was perverted by the struggle for power and wealth. It is in this sense that, when faced with Riina, the capo dei capi, Buscetta accuses him of having been the one to kill the Mafia, with his ambition and thirst for power and revenge.
The truth is that, with or without the Mafia, organized crime continues to exist and proliferate, with close links to all forms of power in the world. There is no true power without organized crime to sustain it, it seems to be an inevitable conclusion.
Far from being a hero, this Buscetta, who the film's title bluntly calls "the traitor", was a murderer, drug trafficker and member of a criminal organization who, when he found himself cornered by the justice system and abandoned by his supporters, decided to repent, tell everything and put himself in the service and under the protection of justice, living the rest of his life, approximately 16 years, at the expense of the State and under the North American witness protection program. All of this leads us to consider this status of repentance and the extent to which the ends justify the means in the fight against organized crime.
This is not about humanizing a sinister figure, because criminals are as human as other people. They are the result of the accumulation of circumstances that make human beings ambiguous, always oscillating between good and evil, between virtue and vice. Buscetta is not and does not consider himself a hero, just a survivor, who would like to die peacefully in his bed instead of being shot in the street, or in jail, despite all the mistakes he made in life.
If there is anything that this film adds to a theme as recurrent as that of the Sicilian Mafia, it is, in my opinion, the idea, rejected outright by Judge Falcone, but which Buscetta seems to believe until the last moment, that Cosa Nostra was an organization of honor and mutual aid, at some point in its history, which was perverted by the struggle for power and wealth. It is in this sense that, when faced with Riina, the capo dei capi, Buscetta accuses him of having been the one to kill the Mafia, with his ambition and thirst for power and revenge.
The truth is that, with or without the Mafia, organized crime continues to exist and proliferate, with close links to all forms of power in the world. There is no true power without organized crime to sustain it, it seems to be an inevitable conclusion.