Watch We Still Kill the Old Way For Free

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A tragicomic murder mystery set in Sicily with a stellar cast - Volante, Irene Papas and Gabriele Ferzetti.A womanizing pharmacist receives a death threat in a letter full of alphabets cut out from a newspaper. Soon, the pharmacist and a professor friend are murdered while on a hunting trip. The brothers of one of the pharmacist's lovers is blamed for what everyone believes to be a honor killing.But their friend, a bumbling leftist professor (played by Volante) thinks there is more to the murders and embarks on an investigation. He becomes suspicious because the letter contained alphabets cut out of an obscure and little read catholic newspaper that the illiterate peasant brothers of the girl could not have subscribed to. After he embarks on his own investigation, the leftist professor falls in love with the beautiful femme fatale Irene Pappas who plays the wife of the murdered professor.The guilty parties are revealed at the beginning of the film itself but Volante's character seems to be completely oblivious. I heard a podcast which suggests that the film is critical of the gullibility and intellectual posturing of the Italian left. Volante's character is representative of the left - he is the only person who does not seem to know what is going on in a society that seems to be complicit in the murders.The film is nice to look at. The heat and dust of Sicily really comes through in the visuals.A great Luis Bacalov score is used to great effect especially during the aerial shots of Sicily. It is a melancholic tune but there are playful versions of the score too.The appreciation of a film like this requires some understanding of the political context about which I was completely oblivious. It is not a Hitchcockian murder mystery if that is what you're looking for. I watched it because I am a fan of Volante and Petri.(7/10)

This is a good, solid, beautifully photographed crime thriller. My misfortune was to pick this film to watch the night after watching, Illustrious Corpses. Now that Italian political crime thriller made in 1976 and based upon a book by Leonardo Sciascia is a near faultless classic with deep undertones and a broad scope that is simply a joy to watch. This, it turns out, is another film based upon another book by Leonardo Sciascia from 1967. How much more sensible it would have been to watch this one first. The thing is there is nothing wrong with this film except it is also about too easily explained killings that the lead character sets out to investigate and in the process overturns a hornets' nest, but there is much less action, intrigue and politics. Gian Maria Velonte is excellent as the professor who takes it upon himself to get involved when most people seem not to care. Interestingly this was the film that helped to lift this actor into more 'serious' films, after having made many spaghetti westerns, one of the last being face to Face also from 1967 when he also played a professor.

"A Ciascuno il suo" is based on the homonymous book by Leonardo Sciascia, and just like many of the author's books is an unconventional detective story aimed at unveiling the hypocrisy and immorality of Sicilian society. The story begins with a man showing his friends a few threat letters. A few days later he gets shot together with one of his friends, a chemist. The murder is filed under "honour crime" (delitto d'onore) a murder committed out of passion and jealousy, and a peasant is convicted for it. Gian Maria Volonté is an awkward school professor who believes in the peasant's innocence, and decides to investigate the crime. His infatuation with the beautiful wife of the victim also plays a part in his decision to solve the mystery. As the story unveils, he will discover unpleasant truths, but will continue with the investigation despite all dangers. Volonté is as formidable as always, changing his accent and posture to fit the part. But the real protagonist is the Sicilian landscape in all its harsh brightness. The cinematography is such that we can almost feel the wind, the sun and the dryness of the air. When I first watched this film I wondered whether anyone who was not Sicilian or familiar with Sciascia's writing would understand all its complexity, but Elio Petri does a masterful job in transposing the book.

Paolo Laurana is a kind of leftist intellectual who chances to be intrigued by a mysterious double murder in the Sicily of mid Sixties. In his personal detection for murder's instigators, he will run into a plot in which both politicians and mafia racketeers are involved. So curiosity will become a very dangerous affair. Taken from a novel by Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989), A ciascuno il suo (1967) is a film where high rank acting is at its top. Cast (Gianmaria Volonté, Irene Papas, Gabriele Ferzetti, Salvo Randone, Luigi Pistilli. Mario Scaccia, Leopoldo Trieste) is perfect and well-combined, direction (Elio Petri, 1929-1982) is powerful and impressive. If compared to the novel, Elio Petri's film (written with Ugo Pirro) may seem short of that illuministic pessimism that breathes through Sciascia's books, but Laurana's rationalistic search for truth retains that `bitter taste of intelligence' which is one of the major feature of Sciascia's characters. A key film to understand historical condition of Italy in the Sixties.