In “The hidden child” that the director Roberto Andò based on his novel of the same name, the actor is a piano teacher involved in a Camorra case
There are films in which it seems to you that the actor and the role are totally identified, not so much for an effort of mimesis or skill but because the character seems to live a real life, as if he had always waited to have those marks on his face, that look so particular, that smile, that immediately recognizable gait, the only “necessary” to that guy we see moving on the screen.
It doesn’t happen often but it’s a feeling I got from seeing Silvio Orlando in the role of Professor Gabriele Santoro, the music teacher protagonist of “The hidden child” by Roberto Andò. Practically immediately, since you shave and try to remember a poem about Ithaca, you forget that there is an actor who plays him and you let yourself go to the flow of the story, immediately conquered, when a boy of nine or ten years – who later turns out to be called Ciro (played by Giuseppe Pirozzi) – sneak in through the door left open for the delivery of a package and hide in the house.
The boy, son of the family who lives upstairs, is
running away
and partly because stunned by surprise partly because of innate suspicion towards the roommates of the block where he lives, in the heart of old Naples, Professor Santoro agrees to hide it. The night before he spied from the window a heated discussion between the boy’s father (Sasà Striano) and some criminals including a strange music addict, Diego (Lino Musella), who had studied piano with him, and understands that for now it is better than l adolescent remain hidden.
Slowly things clear up: Ciro mugged with a friend a woman, fallen and ended up in a coma, without knowing that she was the mother of a powerful Camorra who now wants to take revenge. And so Santoro, who until then had tried to hide himself from the world, taking refuge “in a shitty neighborhood to lead a shitty life” (as his brother slams him in the face), teaching the piano without much passion and indulging himself at most some innocent playing poker with friends, is forced to deal with real life, violence, fear, blackmail and threats.
Of course, the story, which Andò freely drew from his novel homonym
(published by La Nave di Teseo) is not particularly original: the cinema is full of men-ostriches forced by circumstances to deal with something they wanted to ignore. But what makes the difference here is the screenplay (which the director signs with the poet Franco Marcoaldi: an apparently risky choice but which pays off. both Ciro and whoever Santoro is without resorting to the usual, deadly explanations. And also the meeting with the old father (Roberto Herlitzka) from which the professor would have fled (to hear his spiteful brother) and which offers the key to change Giovanni’s behavior with his speech on the clash between Justice and Love, does not fall into the trap of the hackneyed lesson of morality.
So much so that at a certain point the viewer begins to wonder how can we get out of that situation, given that the circle of Camorra revenge is tightening more and more: what will be the happy or not-happy ending that the film will be able to take? When a gun comes into play it seems that things take a precise turn and instead what is perhaps the weakest scene of the film because the most unlikely closes as you don’t expect it and the film takes a completely different path. Which does not hide or mask violence but tries to deal with it in an unexpected way.
And thus, the trap of a predictable or a foregone conclusion is avoided, remains the pleasure of having spent almost two hours in the company of a real character and a real actor, able to cancel himself in his role without losing his identity. The whole cast is up to the ambitions, starting with little Pirozzi, but it must be said that the whole film is supported on the shoulders of a truly admirable Silvio Orlando. A good direction is also a great direction of actors.
November 1, 2021 (change November 1, 2021 | 21:05)
© Time.News