The Traitor

In the early 1980s, an all-out war raged between the bosses of the Sicilian Mafia. Mafioso Tommaso Buscetta fled to Brazil to hide. Meanwhile, scores were settled in Italy: Buscetta’s allies were executed one after the other.

“[Tommaso Buscetta] often features in films and series but always in a secondary role. I wanted to make a film where, on the contrary, he was in the foreground. From a cinematographic viewpoint, his journey interested me. I wanted to understand what had led him to collaborate with Judge Falcone. Because talking represented a total rupture, not only with his enemies, but also with his world. He obviously did it for circumstantial reasons, because his family and his life were in danger, He understood that he had no alternative and even tried to commit suicide to avoid having to talk. I found these psychological dilemmas interesting.
He doesn’t see himself as an “informant”, but still as a soldier of Cosa Nostra. The traitor isn’t him but those who, like Toto Riina, changed the organisation’s rules. His own Mafia didn’t kill children, women, judges and looked after the poor. He defends a code of honour that Falcone obviously opposes, but they have a pact: Tommaso Buscetta agrees to talk without having to tell everything. Falcone agrees, he knows that what he will say will be decisive for his combat against the Mafia.”
Marco Bellocchio (Interview with Céline Rouden, La Croix, 29 October 2019)