Tiburzi is the very unusual biopic of a legendary brigand. In telling the story of Domenico Tiburzi (1836-1896), a Robin Hood of the Tuscan Maremma, Benvenuti in fact does away with all the adventure and action inherent to the character, to instead concentrate on a dry deconstruction of his myth and, most of all, of the scheming and plotting surrounding his death. Book-ended by two songs impressively performed by peasant poetess Silvana Pampanini, which function as the prologue and epilogue in a Tuscan rural drama, the film unfolds with a first act that clarifies the historical and political background behind the hunt for the elusive brigand. Then, we follow through gorges, behind waterfalls and inside caves the fruitless search for the yet unseen Tiburzi. Finally, in the second act, the absconded protagonist makes his indeed ‘majestic’ appearance, yet we never hear him utter a single word. With this silence, Benvenuti seems to state that Tiburzi can only be known through the accounts of others, as he himself didn’t leave written testimonies. In his habitual attempt to restore the look of the times he recounts, Benvenuti here took inspiration for his visuals from the Macchiaioli painters, the pictures of the Alinari Brothers, and from the images on farmers’ and shepherds’ ex-voto offerings.
