Excellent but sad. What's ever sadder is that this is a true story.

This is possibly a bit of a spoiler, but I think not, looking at the consensus text by the critics. Considering the real-life tragical story, the dreamlike sequences, which seemed almost like an alternative timeline, possibly translated better what teens would try to use to overcome the truly impactful events in life. Some quiet, dark scenes made sense to the director and whoever was on the same vibe, but to me ended up being wasted time. The truth was harsh nevertheless. Movie that won't be easily forgotten.

This film didn't really work for me. What I mean is, it was relatively atmospheric, quite quriky and there was a somewhat nice sense of atmosphere but I couldn't quite get my head around what was going on in the plot. I usually quite like films that are a bit sombre and quiet, thoughtful etc. but this film seemed a bit overly padded, time wise and I felt not too sure quite what was going on. It just didn't quite work for me and yet it looks, at times, really quite good and I felt like I should be following it more than I did. Its good on one level but it doesn't work on another, so overall I can't really recommend it as such, no - it needs more substance to really work well, I feel.

Dedicated to Giuseppe Di Matteo, who was strangled and dissolved in acid by the Sicilian mafia (may the Devil take their souls) after being held captive for 779 days in an effort to stop his father from talking to prosecutors, this is a film that follows the efforts, led by a series a prophetic dreams, of one classmate to find the kidnapped boy. Beautifully filmed and performed, this film will leave a mark on your soul.

In a small Sicilian village a 13 year boy disappears, his best friend refuses to stop looking for him, despite the code of silence that has swept over the village and her being turned away at every point of inquiry. She continues her search even with the sinister threats building against her. To reveal anymore would reveal spoilers. Any how, I heard this described as a dark fairy tale, the kind of story that might have previously attracted the attention of the like of Guillermo Del Toro and this is what attracted me to it, being a fan of the likes of Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water which I would class very much as dark fantasy. This however, it just didn't grab me. I found it to be an incredibly slow movie and a film that seemed to be on a lot longer than it was. All of the central players were decent enough but it took too long to get to any major plot development. It's a shame because this had potential.

I liked, the bonkers 'Sicilian Ghost Story' until I didn't, but it's majestically filmed despite the ending. If there ever was a movie, "based on a true story" this is it. The outer edges are real, but holy moly do the directors take some poetic license to tell said tale. Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, who also co-wrote the feature, weave a Romeo and Juliet type tale, but it goes completely off the rails as neither could muster a finish worthy of the story. It's in the title so this isn't a spoiler, but come on, do we really need a ghost? It's hard to follow towards the end as we try to discern what's real and not, but it's safe to say that if you're memorializing someone the last scene doesn't work. I need to feel the love between our two brilliant young actors: Julia Jedlikowska and Gaetano Fernandez. Together they make magic on the screen. Everyone else and there are lots of supporting players do NOTHING to help the film. The characters aren't fleshed out and there are a couple interesting ones who basically show up then leave. I was in 10 territory for about 2/3 of the film. It's completely engrossing, and then poof. It's a final act that made me sad, but not in the way the filmmakers intended. Overall, I'm giving this the softest recommendation possible, but beware you may be frustrated. Final Score: 6.5/10

Toccante, crudo, brutale, reale, difficile da digerire. Ma davvero fantastico.

This was an amazing movie, but SO.FUCKING.SAD! I usually don't cry during movies but this one got me, This is a movie that will stay with you forever!

Didn't finish...

do NOT watch this movie . . . . **SPOILER ALERT** (below) . . . . . . . . . . i don't care how well the directing & acting are, it is a thoroughly depressing movie. i wish i hadn't seen it.

An exquisite thriller with just the right balance of fantasy and realism. The film depicts a horrific event but artfully brings beauty, even tenderness, into the moments that are most difficult to watch.

Beautifully shot and acted with a compelling narrative told through stunning visuals and strong writing. There are some pacing issues, arguably dragging in the third quarter. It could have been shorter. Ultimately though, a very dark and compelling film, crafted with artistic flair.

A wonderful mix of caustic realism and magical realism of sorts. Incredible performances by most all the main players, but esp. Jedlikowska and Fernandez. Similar to "Pan's Labyrinth", Luna's love is too strong to simply let go of the missing Giuseppe. She 'dreams' her way too him through water, woods and memory to 'save' him, despite the great dangers to herself. Excellent DP and sound work.

Stunning story ! Not many movie can remind me about the intensity of feelings at 14 years old...

Not for the faint hearted, this film takes an adorable teenage romance then uses a sledgehammer to break in reality. The film uses mysticism to express keep the viewer in a state of painful doubt to the reality, but this truely is a ghost story. Would recommend if you want your heartstrings tugged and don't mind issues with pacing and structure.

Extraordinary filmmaking of the highest calibre [contains spoilers] Sicilian Ghost Story is cinema as art, in the purest sense of the term. Extraordinary aesthetic beauty and not a small amount of technical virtuosity contain a narrative that is emotionally devastating, but also paradoxically uplifting. Beginning in 1993, Sicilian Ghost Story tells the story of Luna (an extraordinary debut performance by Julia Jedlikowska, who carries the entire film) and Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez), two thirteen-year-olds living in Palermo who are slowly falling in love. Giuseppe is the son of a Cosa Nostra hitman who has recently turned state's witness in prison. Everything is relatively normal in their lives until Giuseppe disappears. Deeply upset, Luna is incredulous at the community's lack of reaction. With this in mind, she determines to find him herself, quickly realising that the two share psychic connection, upon which she must rely if she is ever to see him again. The film is adapted from Marco Mancassola's 2011 short-story "Un cavaliere bianco", about the murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo, son of Santino Di Matteo (known as Mezzanasca), a hitman for the Cosa Nostra, who was arrested in 2013, and became an informer. In retaliation, the Mafia kidnapped his eleven-year-old son, Giuseppe. The plan was to use Giuseppe to silence Mezzanasca, torturing him, and sending pictures to his father demanding that he recant his testimony. However, Mezzanasca refused to cooperate. After 779 days of imprisonment, Giuseppe was strangled to death, and his body subsequently dissolved in a vat of acid. As in the film, Mancassola uses the real-life events as the starting-point for an otherworldly, fantastical narrative which follows Luna's increasingly non-corporeal attempts to find Giuseppe. Sicilian Ghost Story is a fantasy-based love story first, and a fact-based tale of violence and murder second. Indeed, it could just as legitimately called be Sicilian Love Story. Poetic and magical in equal measure, although it spends a great deal of time within Luna's imagination/unconscious, it remains grounded in the Cosa Nostra-dominated Sicilian culture of the early 90s. Because of this duality, although the film tells an undeniably dark story, Pizza and Grassadonia were able to craft a paradoxically uplifting denouement, which doesn't feel even remotely out of place or artificially grafted on. Indeed, the only way they could find into telling the story at all was to introduce an element of the fantastical; speaking at Cannes, they state, "the only way to tell the story was for us to create a collision between a level of reality and a level of fantasy. On the level of reality, a dark fable. On the level of fantasy, a romantic fable." I became aware I was watching something extraordinary in the opening scene. Inside a cave, the camera travels over dark rocks. A weak light emanates from the mouth of the cave, and reflects off the droplets of water on the rocks. As the camera moves, and the screen fills with a black background permeated by soft white spots, one could be looking at an expansive star field rather than being confined inside a cave, a shot which recalls the scene on the driving range in Michael Mann's The Insider, which has a similarly disorientating effect. The filmmakers also employ a litany of techniques to link, contrast, and compare various scenes. Animal imagery appears throughout; an owl, butterflies, a stout, a dog, spiders, and, especially, horses. On a more technical level, Pizza and Grassadonia's visual trickery is exceptionally accomplished, and they employ it perfectly, always justified by the content; fisheye lenses, Dutch angles, asymmetrical framing, chiaroscuro lighting, soft focus, forced perspective, etc. Most of the reasons I loved the film so much will be the exact same reasons that a lot of people hate it - narrative ambiguity, only-ever-hinted-at possibility of something ethereal living in the forest, slightly confusing achronological structure, camera trickery, slow pacing, bleak morality, non-diegetic light sources, naturalistic acting, symbolism and visual metaphors, the use of a real-life murder as the subject for an oneiric romance, the (at times) oppressive music, a tacit disregard for genre, two scenes where the narrative progression simply stops completely and there are two four-or-five-minute sequences that don't advance the plot in any way, but which are achingly beautiful, and central to the film's overriding theme - that love can transcend all. This is cinema as art. Point of fact, it's nothing less than a masterpiece.

"Sicilian Ghost Story" parte lentamente, procede lentamente, arriva lentamente. Ma quando arriva fa male come uno scontro di treni. La cosa che piú fa male è il fatto che sia ispirato da una storia vera. Una tragica "fiaba" che parla di orrore reale, e che lascerà con un nodo in gola chiunque abbia la pazienza di avventurarsi.

This didn't quite live up to my expectations. The young actors were pretty good, but I think the pacing of the drama let it down, and there seemed to be confusion about how magical to let the magical realism become.

To sit in a chair and view this... Italian film Sicilian Ghost Story is a transfixing cinematic experience on the truth of stupidity, animalism and dreams. It floats you along in qualities of the Night of the Hunter, illuminated by the marvellous incandescence of young love and the boy Giuseppe, kidnapped for more than two-years before being strangled and body dissolved in acid. We are in a downpour of maledictions. There will always be cruelty and truth is the far side of the constellation of histories that navigated the abduction of 12 year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a mafia informant in 1993.