It's a bit of a challenge to take on and get across the full impact of the Marzabotto massacre, the worst war-time atrocity committed in Italy during WWII, and director Giorgio Diritti takes a bit of a risk in L'uomo che verrà (The Man who will Come) by viewing events from the perspective of an 8 year old girl. The approach however neither shies away from the very real horror of the events of September 1944 nor sentimentalises them, but presents the story in a shockingly realistic and matter-of-fact way.
Life in the Monte Sole region of Italy, in the mountains south of Bologna, is difficult enough for the inhabitants of the small farming community in the winter of 1943. The work is hard, the people live in poverty and are put under further strain by the taxes and regulations of the fascist government. The pact between Mussolini and Hitler however has just broken down and the German troops who patrol the region have suddenly become a more threatening presence.
For the first half of the film we only get a sense of this from the perspective of Martina, an 8 year old girl. Unaware of what is really going on, her view is one of an innocent gradually coming to an awareness of the nature of the world. No longer speaking since the death of her baby brother, Martina is a silent witness to the world around her, to the struggle to survive. Most of her experiences are typical of childhood; she's bullied at school, is gradually becoming aware of what goes on between men and women, and is looking forward to her mother giving birth to a new baby.
On the other hand, Martina also experiences horrors no child should ever be expected to witness. She sees German troops ambushed and prisoners being executed in the woods, hears the bombardment of Bologna, and experiences first-hand the events of the 28th and 29th September 1944 when she is rounded up with the other villagers by a Waffen SS unit. Accused of sheltering the Partisan units hiding out in the woods who have been attacking their patrols, the SS brutally execute around 770 citizens of Marzabotto; men, women and children alike.
This horrifying true-life event is filmed by director Giorgio Diritti without sentimentality and without exaggeration and it's all the more shocking for it. Despite the necessity of having to create a fictional family and present a child-like narrative viewpoint as a way to navigate through the events, L'uomo che verrà nonetheless is unmanipulative and has an authentic feel for the period, the poverty and the hardship experienced, sparing the viewer little of the horror of what really happened in the region in 1944. L'uomo che verrà won the Best Film award in Italy's 2010 David di Donatello awards.
