The Machine That Kills Bad People

A film set in a coastal town in southern Italy. Celestino is a photographer. The only one in the town; he takes portraits, goes to weddings, and harms nobody. A festival is being prepared. The feast of a local saint is approaching. One night an old man comes to his shop. He introduces himself as that saint and touches Celestino's camera. The next day he notices something. When he photographs someone, that person dies. The dead are left in the pose from the photograph. The body freezes in that attitude and the town finds it strange. Celestino takes it as a duty. He will clear the bad people out of the town; the moneylender, the speculator, the taker of bribes. From there the film becomes a story about a list. He photographs them one by one and people disappear from the town. The trouble is where the list ends. Everyone has a fault and Celestino struggles to draw the line. What the narrative is interested in is not justice but who decides: the film describes what happens when absolute power is put into the hands of a well-meaning man. The town is inside the narrative. Outsiders wanting to build a hotel for tourism, landowners and poor fishermen are in the same square. The tone is a fable. The narrative is not realist; saints, miracles and the devil come directly onto the scene. This is a film outside Roberto Rossellini's usual line. The director is known for his postwar realist work and here he is making pure comedy and folk tale. It was shot on the Amalfi coast and some of the townspeople appear in it. Giovanni Amato, Marilyn Buferd and Pietro Carloni are in the cast. Roberto Rossellini directed. Who it is for: anyone curious about Italian folk tales and Rossellini's lesser known side. Who it is not for: anyone expecting neorealism; the film has nothing to do with that line and the pacing is scattered.