Cinema: Sicily with Garlic

Matioso. Sicily is the Dead Man's Gulch of Europe. It's hot, it's dry, it's wild. Instead of good guys and bad guys, there are carabinieri and mafiosi. Instead of Hollywood moviemakers there are Italian moviemakers who scuttle about the landscape manufacturing folklore. Most of them produce ludicrously crude goat operas, but once in a while somebody really gets Sicily on acetate. Pietro Germi did it once (Divorce—Italian Style); Luchino Visconti did it twice (La Terra Trema, The Leopard); and now Alberto Lattuada serves up ten or a dozen small but gloriously garlicky slices...