Gente di rispetto (The Flower in His Mouth). 1975. Italy. Directed by Luigi Zampa. Screenplay by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Zampa, based on a novel by Giuseppe Fava. Courtesy Cinecittà. In Italian; English subtitles. 2K DCP restoration. 113 min.
A strangely alluring mix of superstition and leftist politics informs this suspenseful drama about a Sicilian schoolteacher who is subjected to violent harassment (her perpetrators also become victims themselves) and who seems to possess secret powers in improving the lives of the poor. Based on a novel by the investigative journalist Giuseppe Fava, who would be murdered by the Mafia in 1984, The Flower in His Mouth takes place in the author’s hometown in the province of Siracusa, where organized crime and the law would conduct their business through secret codes and gestures and where locals regarded outsiders with an almost pathological wariness. Ennio Morricone’s folkloric score makes use of the mandolin and a percussive piano to capture the sense of Sicilian intrigue.