It Was the Son

It Was the Son (È stato il figlio, 2012) is an Italian dark comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Daniele Ciprì and starring Toni Servillo.

The Ciraulo family lives in Zen, a social housing district on the outskirts of Palermo that the city mostly pretends doesn't exist. A stray bullet from a gang shootout kills one of their daughters. The Italian state promises compensation. The family hasn't received it yet when they buy the luxury black Volvo. Things fall apart from there in ways that are both completely predictable and somehow still surprising.

Ciprì — who spent years making uncompromising work with Franco Maresco — shoots in wide, near-static frames that give the neighborhood's dereliction room to breathe. The humor doesn't offer relief; it just makes the misery more precise. Servillo communicates entire scenes without saying a word. Stream It Was the Son (2012) online on iFILM.