Blood of my Blood review by Elke Eijsink
Blood of my Blood (‘Sangue del mio Sangue’) is the latest film from the legendary, Italian director Marco Bellocchio, starring Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Lidiya Liberman and Roberto Herlitzka. The film expresses a wonderful story, or you could say maybe even two. The start of the film is set in the Middle Ages in a small town in the north of Italy, called Bobbio, which is in real life the hometown of the director. Halfway through the film, it skips forwards to the present day.
The first story is engaged with the extreme and traditional Catholic world and tells the story of a young nun, Benedetta (Lidiya Liberman), who is accused of being possessed by a demon and tempting her confessor to sleep with her, therefore driving him into suicide. The brother of the confessor, Federico (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio), comes to Bobbio to make sure that Benedetta confesses to her sin so that his brother can be buried in holy ground. The method of prove is executed via Medieval experiments. Her hair is cut off to see if she will confess, she is pushed of a cliff to see if she sinks (which will make her innocent) and finally her hands are burned to see if the pain will make her confess. During this last trial, Father Cacciapuoti (Fausto Russo Alesi) assures Federico that she will confess within a few minutes and sends him off to tell his mother the good news; her son will be buried in holy ground. Meanwhile, Benedetta is locked up in a tiny chamber inside the convent.
The second story, or second half of the film, is totally different compared to the first half. At first, is hard to see the connection between the two parts, although the scenes of the movie still take place in Bobbio and the convent prison is also still a part of the second half of the movie. The story takes you to Bobbio in the 21st century where a Russian billionaire (Ivan Franek) sees that the convent prison is up for sale and decides to invest. An operator from the government named Federico Mai (again, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio) is helping him with this investment. In the convent prison lives a man named Count Basta (Roberto Hertlitzka). The rumor in the town goes that he is a vampire who has kept his existence a secret for eight years and who only exists at night. He is driven through the streets of Bobbio and observes the people at restaurants, realizing that he can never bring the town back to the past.
– Pier Gorgio Bellocchio as Federico Mai and Ivan Franek as the Russian Billionaire
The connection between the two parts of the movie has, besides the location, to do with the passing of time. In both the time periods in this movie there are bad times. Marco Bellocchio is expressing his critiques to both the past and the present. He highlights the bad circumstances in the past with the medieval experiments on Benedetta but he also highlights the bad circumstances in the present by including a fake tax inspector. Furthermore, the choice of music was a great addition to the movie. The balance of the music between humor and seriousness was entertaining but sometimes questionable and definitely unexpected. The music was attention drawing and guided with beautiful, haunted choral works. All through the film, choirs were present and the members of the choirs performed extravagant pieces of work. Marco Bellocchio’s ‘Blood of my Blood’ is definitely a movie worth watching during the BFI London Film Festival.
You can watch ‘Blood of my Blood’ at Vue West End Cinema, Screen 7 at 12:00.
Book your tickets here.
