Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara
Cinestudio
Hartford
June 5, 2024
Visiting Cinestudio has become one of my favorite activities, as the college-based theater offers some of the more interesting films that don’t get broad releases in standard theaters. After all, Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara, a movie set in 19th century Italy, performed in Italian and Hebrew with a healthy dose of Latin, is a tough sell for multiplexes.
Kidnapped tells the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a 6‑year-old Jewish boy who was kidnapped by the Catholic Church when it discovered that his caregiver, a woman named Anna Morisi, secretly baptized him as an infant. She did so because Edgardo was ill, and she feared that he might die. By baptizing him, she believed that she was saving him from an eternity in Limbo.
One of the challenges with the film is a matter of scope. It begins in the bedroom of Edgardo’s parents, as they pray over him during his illness, with Anna looking on worriedly from the shadows. By the time the movie is over, though, we’re watching as the forces of the newly established Kingdom of Italy invade Rome to bring the Pope’s territories under its sway. In between are scenes of courtroom drama, anguished family visits, angry tirades by the Pope and animated sequences of political cartoons.
There’s precedent for all of this in the truth of the events. It’s true that the Pope’s actions drew worldwide condemnation. There’s even evidence that the “Mortara case”, and others like it, helped to empower the revolution against the Pope in Italy. But as a creative writing teacher told me many years ago, just because it’s true doesn’t make it good.
The core of what should be appealing about Kidnapped gets lost in all of the political intrigue and power struggles the movie focuses on. The core is the family drama. The emotions of having your child ripped away from you against your will should permeate every frame of the movie.
Yet with the exception of Edgardo’s mother Marianna Mortara (played with fierceness and intensity by Barbara Ronchi), Edgardo’s family seems nonchalant about his abduction. His father, Salomone (Fausto Russo Alesi), sleepily stumbles through the film, convinced that half-measures and reasoned arguments will deliver Edgardo back home. Unfortunately, Salomone receives about twice as much screen time as Marianna. Without the visceral reaction of those who love Edgardo driving the plot, it’s hard to feel any sense of loss about what’s happening.
Ironically enough, the family drama also suffers because of the film’s focus on Edgardo himself. Child actors are always a dicey prospect in any project, but none more so than when they are required to carry entire scenes. Enea Sala, who played young Edgardo, is competent enough, but never successfully embodies the sadness or anger of a child who has lost his whole family. That may also be a problem of the script though, as Edgardo is shown acclimating quickly to his new environment and even embracing it. The only moment of rebellion we see out of him is when he cries out for his mother; it’s no coincidence this scene occurs when Sala can play off of the excellent Ronchi.
There also isn’t much that’s interesting in the cinematography and directing of the movie. Italy comes across as dark and drab, even when we’re taken into ornate spaces such as the papal residency. I appreciate that a muted color scheme may have been chosen to compliment the sad nature of the story, but it doesn’t accomplish that goal. It makes the movie look flat. The camera angles, character introductions and other elements of directing don’t help. It gives the movie overall a paint-by-numbers feeling.
I don’t want to talk too much about the plot, because while I won’t say that I was surprised by what happens, the film takes a couple of turns that are worth experiencing without spoilers. I just wish those turns were filled with more emotion than what made it onto the screen. I don’t mean more bombast or shouting matches, I mean more Barbara Ronchi and what she brought to her role. Kidnapped has an interesting, based-on-a-true-story appeal, but the Wikipedia page may prove more interesting than the film itself.
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Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara runs at Cinestudio through June 6.
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