A very lyrical film which transcends the genre of social-realism and the workers’ epic, venturing to the fringes of kitsch. Grimaldi tells his story of a small and by Sicilian standards remarkably blond miner’s son mainly in images and music; picturesque shots and beautiful music reminiscent of opera.The story is set historically in the thirties on Sicily. Protagonist is Aclà (11) who is more or less sold by his father to the foreman at a sulphur mine. The father and an elder brother already work in the mine and the younger brothers will have to follow their example one by one. Life for the miners is very harsh. For six long days they slave in the hot mine shafts and on Sunday they are only able to drown their sorrows in alcohol. The children in the mine are slaves misused for everything sexually too. Aclà flees into an unreal dream world, in which he escapes the terror and the sulphur and finds happiness by the sea.Grimaldi is conscious of the fact that he has made a controversial and ambitious film with the story of the downfall of little Aclà. Who is interested these days in a story about a time and place so far removed from here and now? And what about that scant screenplay with its sparse dialogue in Sicilian dialect? Or of all those naked, sweaty and flogged bodies? At its first screening during the Venice Film Festival, the film received a very mixed reception.
