We Still Kill the Old Way [1967]

 Elio Petri’s filmography can be roughly divided into two categories – relatively restrained films (albeit, not completely bereft of stylistic flourishes) during the first half of his career, and formally exuberant and politically outspoken works subsequently – with We Still Kill the Old Way squarely belonging to the former camp. This muted and moody political conspiracy thriller reminded me of the tone, build-up and oblique storytelling of Francesco Rosi’s superb film Illustrious Corpses. No surprises, perhaps, that both were adapted from Leonardo Sciascia’s novels, this one being from To Each His Own. It began with an audacious long-take – with a “flying” camera providing panoramic views of the Sicilian town in which it’s set – before dramatically diving into the narrative as an oddball Tati-esque postman, while on the way to delivering a letter, discusses about it with the town’s laidback but curious residents. The said letter is an anonymous threat to a womanizing pharmacist, which soon materializes into his murder by unknown assailants during a hunting trip with his friend Antonio. While this is treated as an open-and-shut case of honour killing, a mild-mannered but dogged leftist Professor (Gian Maria Volonté in a fine atypical casting) starts suspecting that Antonio was the real target instead, rather than an unlucky collateral. Sparked by his identification of the newspaper – read by political and religious conservatives – that’s used for composing the threat mails, he starts obsessively digging into the death that’s bound to be detrimental to his physical wellbeing. Along the way he finds himself falling for his dead friend’s widowed wife (a delectably inscrutable Irena Papas), as the plot increasingly thickens. Vivid cinematography and Luis Bacalov’s idiosyncratic score added to the film’s captivating atmosphere.

Director: Elio Petri

Genre: Crime Thriller/Political Thriller

Language: Italian

Country: Italy