Leonora addio

The great Paolo Taviani’s first solo feature since the 2018 death of his brother and filmmaking partner Vittorio, to whom this film is dedicated, is a boldly bifurcated work that begins with the demise of legendary Italian writer Luigi Pirandello. Pirandello’s wish had been that, after his death, his ashes be transported to Sicily, but during the Mussolini years his remains were interred in a Roman columbarium; with the war over, a delegate is dispatched to shuttle Pirandello’s ashes to Sicily to make good, though not without some complications. But the black-and-white first half of the film surprisingly gives way to a color second half, which adapts Pirandello’s final story, “The Nail,” about the circumstances of a young girl’s murder by a Sicilian immigrant boy in New York.