Two years after winning the Palme d'honneur, Marco Bellocchio is back with a new film, L'Enlèvement, presented in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, 7-year-old Edgardo Mortara (Enea Sala) is taken away from his family by the papal authorities. Having been secretly baptized by the nanny of this family of 9 children, the little boy must receive a Catholic education, in accordance with papal law, or risk being considered an apostate. The struggle of the parents (Fausto Russo Alesi and Barbara Ronchi, sublime in their pain) quickly takes on a political dimension.
To tell this story, which caused a real scandal in Italy and beyond, Bellocchio imagines a grand baroque fresco where the intimate and the political, the dramatic and the imaginary, mingle - the caricatures that come to life before the eyes of Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon), the nocturnal unhooking of Jesus from his cross, and the truculent scene where the pontiff imagines himself in bed, surrounded by rabbis ready to circumcise him in retaliation.
From this iconic figure, the Italian filmmaker paints a vitriolic portrait of a deceptively kind but genuinely cantankerous man, a reactionary ('Progress leads to ruin', he assures us), with strong tendencies towards humiliation, as in these uncomfortable scenes, Sometimes he forces Jewish representatives (the real ones) to kiss his shoes, or the young hero, now a young adult (Leonardo Maltese), in full excess of submission and definitively embraced, to draw three crosses with his tongue on the marble floor of a basilica.
It's an opportunity to underline with intensity and mastery - not surprising, given all the institutions Bellocchio has already mocked - the rigidity of the Church and its coercive proselytism that drives it to the worst - there was, after all, a second child abduction by the Catholic institution. Bellocchio's powerful film is dotted with heart-rending scenes, some of which echo each other. A L'Chaim is worth a Latin mass, but a pope's robe will never be worth a mother's to hide from the world. And yet, the decline of an institution and the uprising of a people in search of unification seem paltry in the face of the breakdown of a family.
Must-See UGC Films of 2026: The Best Movies of 2025 Making a Comeback in Theaters for Just €5
The Must-See UGC Films Live Up to Their Name True to their reputation, the UGC Films showcase features the best movies from the past year. The latest edition of this popular event runs from January 14 to 27, 2026, across around fifteen cinemas in the Paris region. The good news? Tickets are just 5 euros each. It's also a great chance to meet some filmmakers and have a chat. Check out the schedule here! [Read more]
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Must-See UGC Films of 2026: The Best Movies of 2025 Making a Comeback in Theaters for Just €5
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