Secretly Baptized and Abducted by the Church: The Abduction, the fascinating true story of Marco Bellocchio, a must-see at the movies.

The subject of this film interested Steven Spielberg, then Robert De Niro, but in the end Marco Bellocchio was responsible. Presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last May and released in cinemas this Wednesday, The Kidnapping adapts the powerful and tragic true story of the Mortara case.

In 1852, when he was only one year old, young Edgardo Mortara, who was born into a Jewish family, was secretly baptized by a family servant who feared for his life because he had fallen seriously ill. Five years later, the soldiers of Pope Pius IX entered Mortara’s house and took the child from the family.

After his abduction, the boy was integrated into a seminary created to convert Jews and Muslims to the Catholic religion. Kidnapping depicts his journey and his parents’ struggle to reintegrate him into his family and his original culture, in a quest for justice that takes place alongside major political events.

Marco Bellocchio summarizes the pope’s actions at the time in these words, from his notes of intent: “I will take you because God willed it so. And I cannot return you to your family. You are baptized and therefore you are a Catholic forever.” This is Pope Pius IX’s “Arapossumus”. Therefore it would be fair to guarantee that in the afterlife of a person, the life of a person is ended, in this case, of a child who does not have, because of his young age, the power of resistance or rebellion.

Vincere’s director also recalls that at the time he organized these abductions and forced conversions, Pope Pius IX paradoxically no longer had the power he might have had in the past:

The abduction of little Edgardo symbolizes (…) the desperate, ultra-violent will of descending power, which tries to resist its own collapse by resisting. Totalitarian regimes often have rebellions that only give them the illusion of victory for a short period of time (a short spasm before death).

The director’s strength lies in the success of turning this tragic story into a sublime opera – a favorite subject of his – even though many scenes take place in the closed and dark world of the church of the time. Despite the scale of his story, Bellocchio offers some very powerful moments of intimacy, weaving this human story into the middle of a larger story with disturbing simplicity.

The Rape hits theaters this Wednesday.