“Money isn’t like a car that can sit idle in a garage. It’s like a horse that has to eat every day.”

– EDOARDO NOTTOLA

Truth, and its elusiveness, is a theme that director Francesco Rosi has explored throughout his career, identifying it as a feature peculiar to Italian society. Having explored a murky period of Sicilian history surrounding the mythic figure of the separatist cum bandit SALVATORE GIULIANO (1962), Rosi focused his enquiring gaze on the speculative land boom of his native Naples for his next feature, HANDS OVER THE CITY.

Drawing inspiration from a real life incident, Rosi and co-screenwriter Raffaele La Capria unfurl a web of political corruption in Naples. It centres on a lethal building collapse, involving a construction firm owned by an ambitious councilman, Edoardo Nottola (a bullish Rod Steiger). With a city-wide election looming, an official investigation is instigated into the accident, and the machinations of council members as well as the web of complicity between politics and commerce are laid bare.

Described by the filmmaker and academic Jean-Pierre Gorin as a “cinema of consciousness”, passive souls need not apply, as Rosi expects of his audience engagement and reflection upon what they see and hear. His aim is not that of mere political hectoring, nor is it a simplistic portrayal of good and evil: it is an investigation into the apparatus that creates and sustains figures such as the self-serving Nottola, whose hands spread far and wide over a city.

… the camera hovers over the luxury high rise buildings, symbolising the illusion of a new future …

Typically observing from upon high and from various perspectives, the camera hovers over the luxury high rise buildings, symbolising the illusion of a new future. Meanwhile, in the corridors of power, councilmen – many of whom are non-professionals drawn from the political arena – cajole and conspire among one another, to determine the precarious fate of the city and its many inhabitants who are mere fodder in the ascent of capitalism.

Occupying an area between drama and documentary and to excellent effect, HANDS OVER THE CITY is as vital, resonant and powerful today almost fifty years after its Golden Lion award at Venice.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscr2HeSqNQ