The Catholic School, a style-polished depiction of the events leading up to the tawdry and terrible real-life episode known to Italians as the Circeo Massacre, is narrated by Edo (Emanuele Maria Di Stefano), who claims that nothing will ever be the same.
It is an oddly light beginning for a movie that will end in a disturbingly prolonged sequence of sexual violence and torture.
Unfortunately, this scene also highlights the unsettling contradiction Mordini never manages to resolve between the painstakingly recreated, rueful coming-of-age story his film mostly is and the unflinchingly ghastly true-crime sadism-horror it unexpectedly becomes.
Edo, like the kids of half of Rome’s affluent, upstanding elite, attended a private Catholic school on the outskirts in 1975. The boys are introduced to us in a somewhat chaotic fashion.
Still, the unmanageable screenplay, co-written by Mordini and Massimo Gaudioso, Luca Infascelli, and centered on the sprawling, the multi-perspective book “La Scuola Cattolica” by Edoardo Albinati (the film’s “Edo”), eventually draws a few identities out of the initial perception of undifferentiated, good looking reckless Italian youth.
Gianni (Francesco Cavallo) is involved in a brutal event early on, which has him dragged before the headmaster, who is promptly, insinuatingly, paid off by Gianni’s father, Raffaele (Ricardo Scamarcio).
On the other hand, Raffaele expresses his disgust with his son, not for the bullying, which he never addresses, but because Gianni has made him “look like an asshole.” There were rules and Edo muses in voiceover; however, they were only randomly enforced, so the boys learned to act as if there weren’t any and accept punishments when they came.
“The Catholic School” is about a landmark event that shocked a society, changed Italian rape law, and blighted the lives of all who knew the killers.
Still, it’s strangely indifferent in the two people for whom nothing would be the same after that summer because one of them was dead, and the other was jammed into the trunk of the car alongside her friend’s corpse, barely alive.
The Catholic School Age Rating
Here’s what parents should be aware of: The parental rating for Catholic schools is Not Rated.
When a film or television program is submitted for a rating by the MPAA, the terms Not Rated (NR) or Unrated (UR) are frequently used. Unrated movies and TV shows should be classified as R / TV-MA, as they are frequently classified or worse.
Conclusion
So, were the three young men accountable for the crime due to their social, family, and religious origins, or were they strange monsters acting solely based on their warped natures? By oscillating between these two points of view, Mordini’s film tries to have its cake and eat it too.
And somewhere, amidst all the retrospective soul-searching, covert flirtations, and rite-of-passage tragedies that young men go through, there are the two victims.
