L'enlèvement

Now here's a story that's set some time in the past, although it's not that long ago and it might leave you quite aghast, as a child is abducted by a dogma in sheep's clothing, it will leave you disenfranchised with feelings of hate and loathing; now the outcome isn't pretty but you may learn something new, about conditioning by others that impacted how you grew, the brainwashing and persuasion - indoctrination, education, that was planted in your mind before you fledged, matured and grew; but there's one thing that won't come as a surprise or revelation, that there's masons, cults and cliques that will lead you to damnation, they control the lives of others, keep their secrets under covers, once their hooks have found their mark, you'll get accustomed to prostration.

Kidnapping is a crime, and so is "Kidnapped".

Truly astonishing how a truly astonishing story translates into a truly astonishing piece of passable cinema on the big screen. A young Jewish boy, secretly baptized into the Catholic faith by his babysitter, is abducted from his family under religious rule. Crazy, but this is 1857 Bologna, 1857 Italy, and 1857 Pope.

The film is presented in grand oil painting style, with golden lighting, velvety robes a flowing, and evil lurking in the shadows. Looks great. Plays, not so much. Hard to imagine a juicier topic handled with such a soft touch. Everyone involved seems detached of real emotion, instead relying on business like restraint, especially in what should be an inflammatory kidnapping scene. Weird.

The set up is tantalizing enough to give hope, but steam is lost quickly as "Kidnapped" starts to spin its wheels while going nowhere slow.

A tale as such, and it is a true one, begs for a grand, epic treatment, where religion, country and family come together in a clash of Biblical proportions. Instead we get an educational history lesson with easily forgettable characters.

• hipCRANK.

Marco Bellocchio has made some interesting movies in the past like "Fists in the Pockets" and "The Traitor" which I have enjoyed. This movie focuses on the Mortara case and the controversial aspects behind the Catholic Church which are complex yet interesting subjects to learn about. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't really do justice to it's concept and it was underwhelming.

Throughout, the production and costumes are pretty good as they help to capture the environment and time period of the old times. Bellocchio's direction is pretty solid as Bellocchio does offer his talents on showing the themes of political power, religion corruption, and secularism within the historical context. The narrative, unfortunately, does feel as impactful as Bellocchio hoped for as the narrative, while does have some interesting ideas, it felt mostly too standard and too bland that it made the movie pretty difficult to fully connect with emotionally. Around the first 35 minutes of the movie was pretty interesting but then the movie struggles to keep heads up high which creates the narrative further dull.

The performances from the cast members were a mix of good and bad with some of the performances like Barbara Ronchi were good but the others were either bland or pretty wooden as it felt like some kind of poor television movie at times. The child performance wasn't great either. Some of the dialogue moments were pretty bad and the characters weren't interesting which I struggled to fully connect with them.

There are some good soundtrack moments, some of the pacing could improve and some of the editing was pretty bad. There were some serious moments that were meant to be emotional, gut-wrenching and sad but it ended up accidentally being unintentionally hilarious at times. Good atmosphere at least.

Undeniably, Bellocchio is definitely offering some of his talents within this movie but as a whole, it was mostly really mid and not something I would see again from his works.

Or is it strangers than fiction? Well whatever the case (and no pun intended as always of course), the apparently true story of a young boy who is being taken away from his family ... to become something quite ... well different from what he'd otherwise be. And the struggle of the family to become whole again as one might suspect.

Am a bit surprised to see all the awards and nominations - had not heard about this before. But that should not sway you away or take anything from the movie. Sometimes there's movies you just discover like this (and the same probably is true for you) ... by the way kidnapping (in this case literally, so definitely no pun intended) is nothing I would call a discovery ... but what happens after that ... well there is quite the mayhem that ensues ... so don't expect this to pull punches or be soft (action part of it but also the general story) ... there is a text introduction and an ... outro-duction? Not sure what it is called, but you get the meaning surely.

I like every part of the movie and everyone really got into their roles, because basically it is a very sensitive topic and a part of the history of a people and the influence of religious divisions. It is known that the Vatican is responsible for many evils, which are not talked about, and this story is just one of the details in all of that. It's not an ordinary story either, but something that happened in the second half of the nineteenth century to many families and it known that the influence of the Inquisition was strong also centuries before that. It is good to be. It is good to watch, even if it is for the sake of some knowledge about the history of the Catholic Church.