Boys Cry – Frères de Sang
Romano Criminale
Film. First film of Innocenzo’s brothers, Boys Cry tells the story of two friends who join a mafia gang on the outskirts of Rome. Ready to do anything … At the risk of getting lost.
By Franck Lebraly
In the suburbs of Rome, two “brothers”, in fact childhood friends, struggle away from the lights of the city. Chance puts them on the path of absolute evil. They overthrow a man who proves to be wanted by the mafia. Collected by the ubiquitous wolf in Rome, they will do everything to integrate the gang and launch to glory. On paper Boys cry, with its badly translated French title (“terra di abbastanza” meaning “point of no return”) evokes modern Remus and Romulus.
“The movie shows how easy it is to get used to evil. The characters go beyond the limits of the bearable”
It is also the common and now banal history of all the suburbs of the world where an alternative life is organized or everyone has their law, far from the civic rules (As Family First shows, Quebec film also released this week) . A world of pain, where we do not believe in luck. So when the “gift” falls from the sky, there is no question of letting it spin no matter what the consequences…
The film shows how easy it is to get used to evil. The characters go beyond the limits of the bearable and become accustomed to it not be sentimental. They live the present moment and accept the missions as their duty of the day, leaving school because innocence is lost.
The realization respects the laws of the genre, and makes the crime intimate : close-ups, blur, grazing light or wide fixed shot. A format close to the documentary in which the crime is not spectacular, but suggested and all the more dramatic. We know the situations, we guess the end and the film doesn’t spare us some lengths. But it is symptomatic of the Italian cinema of today, very centered on the crime : Romanzo Criminale, Gomorrah, Don’t be Bad… Many of these films are not realized by natives of the places which they chronicle. While the Innocenzo brothers bring to theirs a touch of lived, strong and singular.
