Salvatore Giuliano

The work takes its title from its subject – a notorious bandit and leader of a guerrilla group who, in the 1950s, tried to liberate Sicily from Italian rule – but, despite this, it fundamentally deviates from the traditional form of the biopic and presents as an investigative mosaic of the Sicilian question and the history of post-war Italy. With the controversial titular character portrayed for most of the film in absentia – his most memorable appearance is as a corpse – the film's focus falls on the sociopolitical forces, on both sides of the law, that allowed his bloody prominence and they dictated the final sacrifice to him.