Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

nqure This is a Mafia film with a difference, one with spiritual/metaphysical dimensions (an unusual take on the subject matter as said by others). 'The Godfather' also shows how Michael Corleone is corrupted. I preferred 'Black Souls' to another 'art-house' exploration of the Mafia, 'Gomorrah': which was also about the Mafia as a business, the business of death & its noxious influence on society. 'Black Souls' is more intimate, as it revolves around one family, three very different brothers in personality, & how it self-destructs.I did find the settings initially confusing, it moves from metropolitan Milan (modern Italy) to the countryside, to an older peasant Italy with codes rooted in the hills & countryside, actually the South (I thought it was the north still at first). A place almost medieval in tone & customs, like clans brokering marriages to cement alliances or heal feuds.The film is about families & business, how sentiment & business should operate separately but are fatally bound; about Christian (Catholic) faith & despair (One of the brothers is called Luciano -light, the one not involved with the Mafia). The opening scene, a drugs deal involving the two brothers still involved in criminality (The charming, masculine Luigi, the bespectacled taciturn Rocco) sets the tone for the film. In flashy Milan, they negotiate a drugs deal with a new business partner, who has clearly eliminated their previous supplier. The brothers are unsentimental & accept the new arrangement as businessmen. Ironically, as the film progresses, the brothers become marginalised themselves by fellow village families who act out of the very same self-interest after they fail to apologise to the local Godfather. 'Black Souls' is about a family on the brink of self-destruction due to a family grudge being resumed. Emotions take precedence over reason. Luciano has borne the murder of his father by continuing to live & work in the community ruled by the Godfather who had him murdered. An act of vandalism & disrespect re-opens old wounds which escalate into forces beyond the family's & Luciano's control.The title of the film, for me, refers to a Mass which happens towards the end of this gripping film. It appears to suggest that 'you are born a sinner', but one is damned if you are born into a Mafia family because you will belong to its inescapable vendettas & blood feuds.Luciano, perhaps the most sympathetic character in the film, is drawn against his will & by his son's recklessness into his own personal hell. 'Black Souls', meaning men who are damned, condemned from birth by a diabolic bargain. There are some great scenes in this film which probably illuminate the themes of the book. Such as when the charismatic brother lies with his lap-dancer girlfriend in bed. She is naked, her lithe body covered in ink (tattooed characters). It is as if Luigi has made a literal contract with the Devil/bargain with criminality in exchange for his soul/life.It's a rich film, memorable. It's also about the clash of the modern with the traditional, the city & the countryside, as portrayed by Rocco & his wife, Valeria, an outsider, who struggles to understand the men's local dialect &, by suggestion, the situation in which she finds herself. It is about men & women: as with any film about violence & its shocking aftermath, it is the women - mothers, sisters, wives, who must mourn.The ending shocks & resonates, of a man driven by grief & rage, to commit the only act he thinks can stop the never ending cycle of violence. His is a soul in torment.

Bryan Kluger I must admit, I'm a sucker for Italian mafia movies. Maybe it's because part of my family actually hails from Sicily and I've heard tons of stories, which I still can't tell are true or not. The truth is though, we all know that Italy has more than a handful of crime families still operating and doing "business". Needless to say, there is probably enough material and trues stories to keep making Italian mafia films well into the next century. But I must warn you, if you're looking for something as violent and fun as 'The Godfather' or 'Goodfellas', this little film called 'Black Souls' might disappoint, however it shouldn't.In fact, 'Black Souls' is a breath of fresh air in this particular genre. The realism captured here is incredible as this story tends to not focus on a few different outfits going to war, but centers on a small family of three brothers. Based on a novel by Gioacchino Criaco, directed by Francesco Munzi, and starring several veteran theatre actors, 'Black Souls' has enough atmosphere and tension to keep you interested and wanting to spend more time with these characters well after the movie ends.The first brother we meet is Luigi (Marco Leonardi), who is charismatic, energetic, and always fun. Luigi is doing "business" with a Spanish guy to further he wealth and family, but then heads back to Milan where his other brother Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) is awaiting his arrival. Luigi is more of the enforcer and leader of the crime family where as Rocco handles all the financial and business side of things. Rocco even wears glasses, dresses in a business suit and has a wife and kids. He looks non-threatening, physically speaking.The third and oldest brother is Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), who chose to raise and farm goats rather than go into the business. Oddly enough, Luciano has the shortest temper of them all. When Luciano's teenage son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo) would rather work and live with his fun uncle Luigi, and go into the crime business, his father is not too happy. Leo gets into some trouble, which has Luigi and Rocco coming to town to clean up the mess, which causes some big trouble nobody wants to deal with.It's a slow burn for sure as these brothers spend most of the movie calmly talking about the next step and what to do to solve their nephew's problem as other crime families are starting to enter the picture. The women in the film mostly play a backseat here, but when there is something for them to say on screen, it packs a punch, and possibly a few laughs such as Rocco's wife asking, "Oh, are the crooks coming over for dinner tonight?" It's a humorous line, but all to real.'Black Souls' sticks with the excellent characters and their development over the course of the movie to really capture the suspense of this volatile environment. There might not be the need for here, but that's okay, because the climax will leave you with your jaw on the ground. Highly Recommended!

peacecreep Every few years an authentic Italian mafia film comes along, the last one being 2008's Gomorrah. Now we have Anime Nere; A slick, well made, taut and perfectly paced film about an unsung rise to power. It takes place deep within the crime underworld in a village outside of Milan. Grounded in realism and contains no superfluous love stories or unneeded fluff. Classic Mafia film moments and themes are handled deftly and with fresh eyes. The enormity of the film emerges only its its last few frames. People that idolize Scarface or The Godfather will have a new classic on their hands. Thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking cinema.

Salvo Ciccia Last Saturday I went to see "Anime nere" at the London Film Festival with great expectation. In fact in August I had read a very positive review on La Repubblica newspaper. I must say it met completely my expectations, the movie is very well done, convincing and the light, the light is absolutely sublime. I like all the actors performances. The director told us, after the projection, that they were a mix of professional and not professional ones (very difficult to distinguish for the high quality of their performances). The plot is very intense, but not in a bad way. The most disturbing scenes are not shown on screen, but left to the audience imagination. The movie is set in a rural village in Calabria, south of Italy, where the three brothers were born and where Luciano, the elder, is still living with his family. The two younger brothers, instead, had moved to Milan in the north of Italy few years back.Highly recommended, a potential candidate to next year foreign Grammy awards!!