Synopsis
Salvatore Giuliano (1962) is Francesco Rosi's Italian crime drama, available to watch online on iFILM. It opens at the finish line: the bullet-riddled body of Sicily's most wanted man lies face-down in a Castelvetrano courtyard, a rifle beside it.
Rosi never lets you meet Giuliano as a living character. He stays a shape on a hillside, a corpse, a name in other men's testimony. Through overlapping inquests, contradicting newspaper claims and the words of frightened villagers, the film reassembles how a mountain shepherd became either a fighter for Sicilian independence or somebody's disposable pawn — and asks who really ordered the May Day shooting at Portella della Ginestra.
Rosi filmed on the actual streets where it happened and cast locals instead of stars, taking the Silver Bear for directing at the 1962 Berlin festival. His cold, reporter's method — no gangster glamour, only conflicting evidence — got labelled political cinema and was copied for decades. This is neither a biopic nor an action picture; it refuses easy answers, and that's precisely what makes it linger. Stream Salvatore Giuliano (1962) online on iFILM.
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