Review: Briganti

Spoiler alert! I repeat, spoiler alert! If you haven’t already seen Netflix's Brigands: The Quest for Gold, this review will definitely spoil it for you. Do not read beyond this point.

Io sono un principe italiano illegalmente spogliato del suo potere, è qui l'unica casa che mi è rimasta, qui è un lembo della mia patria, qui sono vicino al mio Regno ed ai sudditi miei… vengono chiamati assassini e briganti quegli infelici che difendono in una lotta diseguale l'indipendenza della loro patria e i diritti della loro legittima dinastia. In questo senso anche io tengo per un grand'onor di essere un brigante! ~ Re Francesco II delle Due Sicilie (durante la permanenza in esilio nello Stato Pontificio) [1]

Not surprisingly, I have little good to say about Netflix’s new Italian ahistorical drama Briganti. Released on St. George’s Day (Tuesday, 23 April 2024), the six-episode miniseries tells the fanciful tale of the struggle between bands of brigands and occupying Piedmontese soldiers in Southern Italy looking for pilfered Bourbon gold. Buried somewhere in the “Badlands” of Basilicata two years after Garibaldi’s invasion of Sicily, the fabled treasure map unexplainably ends up in the possession of Don Clemente Degli Orti (Gianni Vastarella), a wealthy (and exceedingly violent) collaborator with the nascent Italian state.

As someone who enjoys period pieces, I thought the sets, scenery, and costumes were fantastic, though I’m not sure how authentic some of the firearms were. The one main exception to this is the cheering townspeople in the final episode. Dressed with heavy eye makeup, dyed beards, and braids, the menfolk looked a little too much like Captain Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-2017) for my taste.

(L-R) Giuseppe Schiavone (1838-1864), Carmine Crocco (1830-1905),
and Filomena Pennacchio (left) with two other female freedom fighters

To their credit, the filmmakers mostly steered clear of the current darkened cinema trend (e.g. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023)) and the bright sunny colors of the Southern Italian countryside and picturesque traditional folk costumes shine through beautifully.

Perhaps, at times, a little too much in the case of Michelina Di Cesare (Matilda Lutz). While eye-catching, the crimson dress and warpaint she wore in the season’s penultimate episode was more than a little over the top. Standing on the “altar” of a ruined church with ciborium and bucranium she looked like a savage Amazon more suitable for Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006) or George Miller’s upcoming Furiosa (2024) than the famed Brigantessa her character was supposedly based off of.

Top: Matilda Lutz as Michelina Di Cesare. Bottom: (L-R) Anya Taylor-Joy (Furiosa, 2024) and Charlize Theron (Fury Road, 2015) as Imperator Furiosa 

Replete with sex and violence, the storyline was very formulaic and predictable, not to mention vulgar and obscene. For example, Pietro (Orlando Cinque) voicing his plans for the Monaco Gang in mid-coitus with his wife Ciccilia (Ivana Lotito) was silly and unnecessary. The same goes for the gratuitous “outing” of the artist used to paint the propaganda posters for the "Council of Terra di Lavoro." It was irrelevant and detracting. 

Even more ludicrous was the sex scene with Filomena (Michela De Rosa) and Giuseppe Schiavone (Marlon Joubert), aka Sparrowhawk (Sparviero). After protecting her from being raped by their cellmates, the battered and bloody “Murderess” and “Curse,” as she is often called, seduces him in the cage next to the sleeping prisoners and guards.

Since they aren't following the true story of Filomena and Giuseppe, I don’t understand why he didn’t just kill her when they were forced to fight each other to the death by the bloodthirsty Stonebreaker Gang (Spaccapietre). It was totally out of character for the self-serving double-dealing cad to sacrifice himself for her, especially when, as it turned out, he was really in love with another woman the whole time.

Alas, we already know the reason why. Predictably, in season two, Giuseppe's girlfriend will betray him and he will end up with Filomena.

(L) Michelina posing with guns. (R) "Aiming higher," Briganti's Michelina
posing for a portrait dressed as the Blessed Mother with a rifle

Dressing and painting the tattooed brigand chieftess as the Blessed Mother to capitalize on the fervent religiosity of the people also seemed unnecessarily irreverent and unwarranted. As far as I am aware, there were only photos of the real-life Michelina bearing arms to help incite rebellion. Later, the Piedmontese took pictures of her naked and battered corpse to dishonor her memory and strike fear in the hearts of the people they were "selflessly liberating." The pictures also showed that she dressed more modestly and was not covered with tattoos like some common trollop.

(L) Michelina with a bouquet of flowers. (R) The Piedmontese's handiwork

While I think it is always good to shine a negative light on the Risorgimento and Italian Unification, the show romanticizes the scummiest aspects of brigantaggio, which truly had nothing to do with the loyalist uprisings that took place in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies after the Northern conquest. Briganti was a derogatory term meant to demean and delegitimize the cause of the Bourbon die-hards. The two phenomena were purposely conflated at the time to undermine support for the resistance. Unlike today, where it was reappropriated as a badge of honor, the legitimists back then never referred to themselves as “Briganti.” Nor for that matter did they refer to themselves as “Southerners.” They were proud Duosiciliani (Neapolitans, Sicilians, Calabrians, etc.).

The more I think about the show, the more confusing and inane I find it. The storyline is dumb and the writing is terrible. Why would Don Clemente marry lowly Filomena, an orphaned peasant girl beneath his station and whom he has nothing but contempt for? Why would he murder Filomena’s friend over a cup of water and then throw his wife into a well? If the water was so valuable, why would he risk contaminating the cistern with his wife’s body? None of it makes any sense.

I know I focus a lot on Michelina, but Filomena De Marco is the story's main protagonist. Her character is based on Filomena Pennacchio (1841-1915)

Considering the relative ease Murillo (Federico Ielapi) secretly met with General Fumel’s (Pietro Micci) daughter Lissandra (Alida Baldari Calabria) and enter their domicile, why didn’t the brigands kidnap and ransom them? Why would the general risk bringing his daughter south in the first place? Why didn’t they just sneak into his home and assassinate him? If the real resistance was this inept, it is no wonder they lost the war.

During the big battle scene outside the church, why didn’t Michelina retreat with everybody else when they made off with the gold? Declaring, “We want victory,” she foolhardily advances toward the general and gets shot and captured. I get her wanting to kill Fumel, but while lying on the ground wounded her very next line was, “We have already won.” [!?!] If that was the case, then why didn’t she flee?

Even crazier, is why the briganti didn’t just open fire on the soldiers standing guard. Not only did they allow them to get into position, they let them shoot first. [!?!] A barbarous occupational force, the Piedmontese had no qualms about murdering innocent civilians or burning whole villages to the ground. For heaven’s sake, they collected severed human heads for Lombrosian experiments, so the hesitancy to obey their general’s command to shoot the populace was one of the most historically inaccurate parts of a series glutted with inaccuracies.

(L-R) The corpses of Nicola Napolitano, executed "Briganti," and Ninco Nanco

I could go on and on [I cut about a third of the review], but let me wrap this diatribe up with the most glaring problem with the show. This, of course, is the omission of all the socio-political aspects of the popular resistance to the Piedmontese invaders. The “Briganti” were legitimists fighting for their true King, SG Francesco II (1836-1894). They fought tooth and nail for their native land, traditional way of life, and faith. They were not, as portrayed by the show, revolutionaries or feminists, and they certainly weren’t motivated solely by greed and lust for gold.

Mindful of their poor track record and today’s progressive climate, I never really expected Netflix to air a good show. We also saw the way Pasquale Squitieri’s far superior and much more accurate Li Chiamarono…Briganti (They called them Brigands) was received and suppressed in 1999. Other than affording us the opportunity to discuss the lawless period, there is little value in the show. In fact, Briganti's one saving grace is the rendition of Brigante Se More by Gennaro “Raiz” Della Volpe, which serves as the series theme song. Maybe I’m being overly critical, but not since Amazon’s abhorrent Rings of Power (2022) have I sat through something this awful.

~ Giovanni di Napoli, April 28, Feasts of St. Vitalis of Milan and St. Paul of the Cross

Notes:

[1] I am an Italian prince illegally stripped of his power, here is the only home I have left, here is a corner of my homeland, here I am close to my Kingdom and my subjects...those unfortunates who defend in an unequal struggle the independence of their homeland and the rights of their legitimate dynasty. In this sense, I also consider it a great honor to be a brigand! ~ King Francesco II of the Two Sicilies (during his stay in exile in the Papal States)