We Still Kill the Old Way

"Here we still kill in the old way,” states one of the characters about halfway through the film. By "here” he is referring to a typical Sicilian seaside village and indirectly to the status quo the Mafia established decades earlier on Italy’s biggest island. Based on the novel of the same name by Leonardo Sciascia, this austere and hard-hitting picture (a marked divergence from the pop-art extravagance of The 10th Victim) uses its criminal plot (the mysterious murder of two men during a hunt) as a vehicle to investigate Petri’s aversion to the injustice, intimidation, and conspiracy of a society that harkens back to the feudal order. Idealistic Prof. Laurana (Gian Maria Volonté), who is investigating the murder with obstinant naïveté – an ill-fated combination – indirectly confronts the Mafia as a phenomenon permeating the consciousness and behavior of the entire local population. He suspects that the alleged crime of passion is in reality a political hit but his judgment is clouded by a burgeoning passion for a friend’s widow, a mystery-shrouded "woman in black” (Irene Papas). One of the first Italian films about the Mafia, at Cannes it picked up Best Screenplay for Petri and first-time collaborator Ugo Pirro, who went on to co-author two of the director’s subsequent triumphs: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and The Working Class Goes to Heaven.