Excellent Cadavers (2006)

Synopsis: Based on the book by Italian-American author Alexander Stille and featuring the photos of Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, EXCELLENT CADAVERS chronicles the recent history of the Mafia and its integral--and seemingly ineradicable--relationship to postwar Italian... Based on the book by Italian-American author Alexander Stille and featuring the photos of Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, EXCELLENT CADAVERS chronicles the recent history of the Mafia and its integral--and seemingly ineradicable--relationship to postwar Italian politics. Whereas in the past the Cosa Nostra used to kill only their own, beginning in the Seventies the Mafia began assassinating prosecutors, judges and others who were fighting them, and thus began producing the "excellent cadavers," as Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia called them. EXCELLENT CADAVERS focuses on the efforts of two courageous prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, whose efforts in the mid-Eighties led to the Maxi-Trials in Palermo, where, in a heavily-protected underground bunker the size of a football field, hundreds of Mafia defendants were tried and convicted. The film features interviews with both Falcone and Borsellino (both of whom were assassinated by bombings in 1992), details their investigative techniques, and shows highlights from the Maxi-Trials, where informants confronted Mafia bosses, and mob 'soldiers' recounted horrifying stories of murders and mysterious 'disappearances,' including the dissolving of bodies in vats of acid. Through contemporary interviews with magistrates involved in these historic trials, archival footage, and Battaglia's shocking and heart-rending photos of public assassinations, EXCELLENT CADAVERS traces the history of the relationship between the Mafia and Italian politicians since the end of the Second World War, when the criminal Sicilian organization became a useful tool during the Cold War struggle against the Italian Communist Party. From the increasingly sophisticated nature of their international criminal enterprise, the periodic bloody power struggles between rival factions, and the Maxi-Trial revelations of informats, it is a history that has repeatedly exposed the collusion between the Mafia and the highest members of the Italian government-including former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Indeed, as EXCELLENT CADAVERS makes clear, although the courageous efforts of Falcone and Borsellino show that the Mafia can be brought to justice, the continuing involvement of the Mafia in Italian politics is evident to everyone. Nevertheless, and perhaps the best proof of this reality, is that successive Italian governments--including the current Berlusconi regime--either ignore the Mafia or essentially do nothing about it. -- © First Run/Icarus Films [More]