Like Sheep Among Wolves

Film - 2023

6,3

38.6K

Like Sheep Among Wolves it's a movie with Isabella Ragonese, Andrea Arcangeli, Carolina Michelangeli, Aleksandar Gavranić, Clara Ponsot Full cast. Directed by Lyda Patitucci. Original title Come pecore in mezzo ai lupi, runtime 100 minutes. Genres Drama, Crime.

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Review of

Ros

noir thriller debut feature. Not perfect: plot already seen. But there is hope for the future. Ragonese is good at getting into character. Score 6 and a half Read all

A lacerating awareness of one's own anguish. of

Gianluigi De Dea

“Like sheep among wolves” is a powerful detective noir that explores the dark side of the human soul and family ties, directed by Lyda Patitucci and masterfully interpreted by Isabella Ragonese and Andrea Arcangeli. The plot of the film develops around the role of the protagonist, Stefania, alias Vera, as an infiltrator in a ruthless criminal gang. Through a cruel twist of fate, Stefania's brother, Bruno, also joins the criminals, but only to become their accomplice, driven by an urgent need for money to support his family. Religion, among the central themes of the film, coercively imposed by the arid and affectionless father figure, does not reconcile, but distances the feelings of sister and brother - forced into a tacit alliance - making their gaze disenchanted towards every glimmer of hope. The merciless photography and the physical transformation of the two actors demonstrate the internal discomfort of the characters, abandoned by society and forced to put their lives at risk. The character of Vera stands out for its complexity, for being the antipodes from the trite cliché of the heroine in detective genre. The film explores family, emotional and social dynamics, highlighting how the tyrannical educational model imposed by the father degenerates into a curse for Stefania and Bruno. The metropolitan reality is represented as an inhuman scenography, of which there is no shortage of illustrious cinematic examples (for example Rocco's Milan and his brothers). Quoting Alberto Moravia in his commentary on Ugly, Dirty and Bad: “… there was what Pier Paolo Pasolini called the anthropological change of consumerism; and which we, more modestly, would define as the disappearance of the hope of better times.” Or, perhaps, these better times never existed. Read all

Review of

Emiliano Baglio

Apparently Like Sheep Among Wolves is a thriller/noir and from this point of view it also works well. Director Lyda Patitucci, in her debut, manages to calibrate the tension well, keeping it high throughout the entire duration of the story, constructing solid sequences of action and above all it remains faithful to the principles of the genre, first of all the construction of characters who run inexorably towards their own definitive defeat. On the other hand, the typical elements of noir are all there; there is Vera (Isabella Ragonese) who hides a secret and a group of Slavic criminals ready for anything and without mercy who however pray and know the Holy Scriptures by heart. There is the ex-convict Gaetano (Gennaro di Colandrea) who has destiny written on his face and there are those like Bruno (Andrea Arcangeli) who dream of a different future for his daughter Marta (Carolina Michelangeli). There are those who play a double game, there are deeper bonds that bind some characters and which must be kept secret. Perhaps this is the main limitation of the work, there are too many irons in the fire. It all depends on the point of view one adopts. Like sheep among wolves can be read as a new piece of politics production carried out for some years by Grøenlandia Srl of Matteo Rovere and Sydney Sibilia aimed at revitalizing genre cinema in Italy. Or the founding nucleus of the film, rather than in the detective plot, can be identified elsewhere. In this sense, there are two main suggestions. The first is the one that sees religion at the center of many sequences. Not only that embodied by the preacher played by Tommaso Ragno and which has certainly ruined the lives of two of the main characters (obviously we won't say which ones), but also that faith , continually exhibited by the Slavs already narrated by works such as Siberian Education (book and film) or Eastern Promises. However, it seems to us that Like sheep in Read all

plot

Two siblings that haven’t seen each other in years find themselves involved in the same heist on opposite sides of the barricade: she as a police officer, he as a criminal. Old wounds will resurface, and the pair will have to make choices that will seriously jeopardize their goals.