Four kids entertain themselves with daring adventures: during one of these, they steal a car, run over a policeman and escape to their hideout, a caravan on the dunes of Capocotta beach. Later in life, the four form a criminal gang with the aim of conquering Rome. Most of the film was shot in the neighbourhoods of Magliana, Garbatella, Trastevere and Monteverde.
The external façade of Patrizia’s brothel is villino Cirini, in via Ugo Bassi, Monteverde. Freddo’s brother and Roberta live in the same housing estate in Garbatella. The house of Terribile, which later becomes Lebanese’s, is Villa dell’Olgiata 2, in the area of Olgiata north of Rome, while Freddo lives in via Giuseppe Acerbi, in the Ostiense neighbourhood, not far from where Roberta’s car blows up in via del Commercio, in the shadow of the Gazometro.
Terribile is executed on the steps of Trinità dei Monti. Leaning on the rail overlooking the archaeologial ruins in largo Argentina, Lebanese and Carenza talk about the kidnap of Aldo Moro. The Church of Sant’Agostino where Roberta shows Freddo Caravaggio’s Madonna dei Pellegrini is the location for several key scenes in the film. Lebanese is stabbed in a Trastevere alley and falls down dead in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. The hunt for Gemito ends in a seafront villa in Marina di Ardea-Tor San Lorenzo, on the city’s southern shoreline, where he is murdered. Forced to hide, Freddo finds refuge in a farmhouse in Vicarello, hamlet of Bracciano.
A scene which opens over the altare della Patria and the Fori Imperiali introduces the end of the investigation into Aldo Moro’s kidnap, followed by repertory images of the discovery of his body in via Caetani. The many real events included in the fictional tale include the bomb attack at the station of Bologna at 10:25 am, 2 August 1980: in the film, both Nero and Freddo are in Piazzale delle Medaglie d’Oro several seconds before the bomb explodes.
Commissioner Scaloja, who is investigating the gang, takes a fancy to Patrizia: they stroll near the Odescalchi Castle in Ladispoli. He finds out if his feelings are reciprocated when, several scenes later, he finds her in a state of confusion near Castel Sant’Angelo.
Four kids entertain themselves with daring adventures: during one of these, they steal a car, run over a policeman and escape to their hideout, a caravan on the dunes of Capocotta beach. Later in life, the four form a criminal gang with the aim of conquering Rome. Most of the film was shot in the neighbourhoods of Magliana, Garbatella, Trastevere and Monteverde.
The external façade of Patrizia’s brothel is villino Cirini, in via Ugo Bassi, Monteverde. Freddo’s brother and Roberta live in the same housing estate in Garbatella. The house of Terribile, which later becomes Lebanese’s, is Villa dell’Olgiata 2, in the area of Olgiata north of Rome, while Freddo lives in via Giuseppe Acerbi, in the Ostiense neighbourhood, not far from where Roberta’s car blows up in via del Commercio, in the shadow of the Gazometro.
Terribile is executed on the steps of Trinità dei Monti. Leaning on the rail overlooking the archaeologial ruins in largo Argentina, Lebanese and Carenza talk about the kidnap of Aldo Moro. The Church of Sant’Agostino where Roberta shows Freddo Caravaggio’s Madonna dei Pellegrini is the location for several key scenes in the film. Lebanese is stabbed in a Trastevere alley and falls down dead in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. The hunt for Gemito ends in a seafront villa in Marina di Ardea-Tor San Lorenzo, on the city’s southern shoreline, where he is murdered. Forced to hide, Freddo finds refuge in a farmhouse in Vicarello, hamlet of Bracciano.
A scene which opens over the altare della Patria and the Fori Imperiali introduces the end of the investigation into Aldo Moro’s kidnap, followed by repertory images of the discovery of his body in via Caetani. The many real events included in the fictional tale include the bomb attack at the station of Bologna at 10:25 am, 2 August 1980: in the film, both Nero and Freddo are in Piazzale delle Medaglie d’Oro several seconds before the bomb explodes.
Commissioner Scaloja, who is investigating the gang, takes a fancy to Patrizia: they stroll near the Odescalchi Castle in Ladispoli. He finds out if his feelings are reciprocated when, several scenes later, he finds her in a state of confusion near Castel Sant’Angelo.
Copyright: Warner Bros
Claudio Santamaria, Pierfrancesco Favino, Kim Rossi Stuart
Copyright: Warner Bros
Riccardo Scamarcio
Copyright: Warner Bros
Pierfrancesco Favino
Copyright: Warner Bros
Michele Placido, Stefano Accorsi
Copyright: Warner Bros
Claudio Santamaria, Kim Rossi Stuart, Pierfrancesco Favino
Cattleya, Babe Films, Warner Bros
Based on the novel of the same title by Giancarlo De Cataldo. The activities of the “Banda della Magliana” and its successive leaders (Libanese, Freddo, Dandi) unfold over twenty-five years, intertwining inextricably with the dark history of atrocities, terrorism and the strategy of tension in Italy, during the roaring 1980’s and the Clean Hands (Mani Pulite) era.
| Aspect | Classical (Pre-1960) | Modern (1960-2000) | Contemporary (2000–present) | |--------|----------------------|--------------------|-----------------------------| | Mother’s agency | Victim or monster | Ambivalent, neurotic | Traumatized, complex, political | | Son’s arc | Escape or destruction | Paralysis or rebellion | Reconciliation or caregiving | | Primary affect | Guilt & awe | Anxiety & rage | Grief & tenderness | | Ending | Death or marriage | Breakdown or repetition | Open-ended conversation |
For decades, the narrative was Freudian: the son must kill the mother (metaphorically) to become a man. Recent works reject this:
Film, with its visual and auditory intimacy, amplifies the mother-son dyad, often pushing it into horror or hyper-realism. Report: "Japanese Mom-Son Incest Movie with English Subtitle
Early cinema often leaned into the "Mother Martyr" trope.
Before cinema, literature laid the groundwork. The Western canon is practically built on the tension between mother and son. While the father-son conflict (Telemachus and Odysseus, Hamlet and his ghostly father) often deals with legacy and power, the mother-son conflict is about something more primal: psychic survival and separation. Psycho (1960) – Norman Bates and Mrs
The Sacred Mother vs. The Monstrous Mother
In early literature, mothers were often divided into two extremes. On one hand, you had the Virgin Mary—the sacred, asexual ideal of self-sacrifice. This archetype dominates sentimental Victorian literature, where the dying mother blesses her son from a deathbed, instilling in him a moral compass that never wavers. Think of the mother in The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens—ethereal, suffering, and saintly. Her only purpose is to die beautifully to motivate the male hero. Ingmar Bergman – Autumn Sonata (mother-daughter
On the other hand, you have the monstrous mother—the devourer. This figure is less about nurturing and more about possession. In Greek myth, Gaia is a primordial force, but a more nuanced example is Jocasta from the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles. Though often reduced to a footnote in the "Oedipus Complex," Jocasta represents the unconscious desire for the son to remain attached. When she hangs herself, it is a final, tragic acknowledgment that the son’s independence requires her symbolic (or literal) death. This Oedipal shadow would hang over psychology and art for millennia.
The 20th Century Shift: Sons of Anger
The 20th century, scarred by world wars and Freudian analysis, dismantled the sentimental mother. D.H. Lawrence became the high priest of the destructive mother-son bond. In Sons and Lovers (1913), Gertrude Morel is a masterpiece of psychological fiction. Alienated by her brutish, alcoholic husband, she pours all her intellectual and emotional energy into her son, Paul.
Lawrence writes not of a saint, but of a vampire. Gertrude "lives" through Paul, and in doing so, cripples his ability to love other women. Every potential partner (Miriam, Clara) is measured against the impossible standard of the mother. The novel’s heartbreaking tragedy is not that Paul hates his mother; it is that he loves her too much to ever leave her. When she finally dies of cancer (and Paul, in a symbolic act of mercy, gives her an overdose of morphine), he is left not free, but utterly annihilated, "walking towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly." The son is finally alone, but he has forgotten how to be a man.
| Aspect | Classical (Pre-1960) | Modern (1960-2000) | Contemporary (2000–present) | |--------|----------------------|--------------------|-----------------------------| | Mother’s agency | Victim or monster | Ambivalent, neurotic | Traumatized, complex, political | | Son’s arc | Escape or destruction | Paralysis or rebellion | Reconciliation or caregiving | | Primary affect | Guilt & awe | Anxiety & rage | Grief & tenderness | | Ending | Death or marriage | Breakdown or repetition | Open-ended conversation |
For decades, the narrative was Freudian: the son must kill the mother (metaphorically) to become a man. Recent works reject this:
Film, with its visual and auditory intimacy, amplifies the mother-son dyad, often pushing it into horror or hyper-realism.
Early cinema often leaned into the "Mother Martyr" trope.
Before cinema, literature laid the groundwork. The Western canon is practically built on the tension between mother and son. While the father-son conflict (Telemachus and Odysseus, Hamlet and his ghostly father) often deals with legacy and power, the mother-son conflict is about something more primal: psychic survival and separation.
The Sacred Mother vs. The Monstrous Mother
In early literature, mothers were often divided into two extremes. On one hand, you had the Virgin Mary—the sacred, asexual ideal of self-sacrifice. This archetype dominates sentimental Victorian literature, where the dying mother blesses her son from a deathbed, instilling in him a moral compass that never wavers. Think of the mother in The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens—ethereal, suffering, and saintly. Her only purpose is to die beautifully to motivate the male hero.
On the other hand, you have the monstrous mother—the devourer. This figure is less about nurturing and more about possession. In Greek myth, Gaia is a primordial force, but a more nuanced example is Jocasta from the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles. Though often reduced to a footnote in the "Oedipus Complex," Jocasta represents the unconscious desire for the son to remain attached. When she hangs herself, it is a final, tragic acknowledgment that the son’s independence requires her symbolic (or literal) death. This Oedipal shadow would hang over psychology and art for millennia.
The 20th Century Shift: Sons of Anger
The 20th century, scarred by world wars and Freudian analysis, dismantled the sentimental mother. D.H. Lawrence became the high priest of the destructive mother-son bond. In Sons and Lovers (1913), Gertrude Morel is a masterpiece of psychological fiction. Alienated by her brutish, alcoholic husband, she pours all her intellectual and emotional energy into her son, Paul.
Lawrence writes not of a saint, but of a vampire. Gertrude "lives" through Paul, and in doing so, cripples his ability to love other women. Every potential partner (Miriam, Clara) is measured against the impossible standard of the mother. The novel’s heartbreaking tragedy is not that Paul hates his mother; it is that he loves her too much to ever leave her. When she finally dies of cancer (and Paul, in a symbolic act of mercy, gives her an overdose of morphine), he is left not free, but utterly annihilated, "walking towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly." The son is finally alone, but he has forgotten how to be a man.
