The screen crackles with candlelit atmosphere and loaded energy when confronting the almighty or spiritually disturbed locals all the while contending with the unrelentingly deafening silence of god. It might feel stagey, but it harkens back to the soul-purging desirous longing that burns through Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant or James Russo in Dangerous Game. The film is at its best when it’s LaBeouf in a room, arguing with unseen forces, maybe demons or even the devil perhaps. Padre Pio hits a hard vein of interiority à la Robert Bresson or Paul Schrader. Padre Pio leans into its politics and historical fealty the spiritual aspects are heady, abstract, and dense this is normally putty in Ferrara‘s hands, but there’s an obstruction that keeps the film at a distance. The postwar climate, paired with the arrival of the Padre on the eve of the first free elections incite a wave of upset in the community there was talk of socialism, communism, and labor reform, and names like Marx and Engels are thrown around looming shadow of fascism is lurking around the corners as partisans labor and discuss a brighter future for their country. Meanwhile, battered soldiers returning from the war are broken, bandaged, and amputated there’s despair and uncertainty. Opening up on a rocky vista, a downtrodden, shaggy-dog Friar, Padre Pio, also known as Francesco Forgione, ride through an impossibly rocky and inhospitable landscape. Padre Pio is not quite the glacial ambiguity Ferrara-heads acclimated to with post-2020 outings, Siberia and Zeros and Ones, but an intuitive grappling of anarchic anachronism there’s this improvisational neo-realist vibe, but it feels like deliberate creative choices. This is one of many instances where the narrative blends fact and fiction, past and present at one point, a cryptic off-screen voice taunts Pio of having his “narcissistic way with countless women.” Rightfully unsubtle, you can’t miss the significance of a line like that. You could read this as Abel Ferrara enabling LaBeouf, giving him a pass, but it invites us, the viewer, to confront his actions as this film is about the emotional and spiritual inner turmoil of its character without offering an easy way out. This idea of divisive controversy is all the more prevalent with Abel Ferrara‘s latest, Padre Pio, a film dedicated to the titular Capuchin Friar, the political strife in post-WWI Italy, and religious anguish, but it’s very much a meta-narrative about Shia LaBeouf‘s redemption arc, whether or not we feel he’s worthy of absolution is another matter. And if you engage and support a film with a problematic director and/or star, perhaps make a small donation if you support the work of an abuser I would recommend that you support those who have been abused. The argument of separating the artist from the art is something of a cop-out, and to do so, in this case, would be irresponsible and an insult to victims of abuse Shia LaBeouf and his actions are another knot in a lengthy and tangled web of gendered violence, and while there are no easy answers or solutions, people can invest their time and donate to non-profit sexual assault organizations such as RAINN, (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network), NYSCASA (New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault), NCADV (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence) and try to raise your sense of awareness to this issue as best you can.
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