305 S. Campbell, Suite 101
Springfield, MO 65806
(417) 429-0800
info@moxiecinema.com
A Jewish boy is kidnapped and converted to Catholicism in 1858. (NR, 134 min.)
6:30 PM
6:30 PM
4:30 PM
5:00 PM
4:15 PM
4:00 PM
4:30 PM
In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo’s parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras’ struggle quickly take a political dimension. But the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power. [Cohen Media Group]
Starring: Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Language: Italian, Hebrew
Genre(s): Drama, History
"Kidnapped is as brilliant and revealing as it is masterfully told."
— Dwight Brown, DwightBrownInk.com
"The story is kept at a stress-inducing simmer, with occasional surges of operatic emotion."
— Keith Uhlich, Slant Magazine
"[Edgardo Mortara's] tortuous journey gets the respect it deserves in this sensitive and beautifully realized drama."
— Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal
"With stately restraint, Bellocchio manages to put the audience in an ever-tightening chokehold of tension and outrage."
— Wendy Ide, Observer (UK)
"The performances, meanwhile, are exemplary, the screenplay powerful, and each scene is lit like high-era Caravaggio."
— Kevin Maher, Times (UK)
"Kidnapped is an expertly paced, gorgeously shot and evocative true story of faith, family, and the power of people coming together to right deeply ingrained wrongs."
— Barry Levitt, Empire Magazine
"A moving story of faith, loss and family set against the backdrop of a significant moment in Italian history, Kidnapped brings Edgardo Mortara’s unforgettable story to life."
— Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, AWFJ.org
"The director, Marco Bellocchio, anchors the period with a somber visual elegance and employs surreal gestures to tease out the psychological and spiritual aspects of the tragedy."
— Lisa Kennedy, New York Times
"It is a full-tilt melodrama with the passionate vehemence of Victor Hugo or Charles Dickens, which lays bare an ugly formative episode of Europe’s Catholic church: an affair of antisemitism and child abuse."
— Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
"Mr. Bellocchio, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Susanna Nicchiarelli, has crafted a weighty, suspenseful family drama that touches on the eternal conflicts of religion but widens into a consideration of law, personal development and power politics."
— Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal
"Kidnapped (Rapito) is one of Marco Bellocchio’s most successful films, both as a taut thriller that will capture audiences with his terribly human drama, and as a masterful reflection on the themes that the Italian director has worried and revisited over a lifetime of filmmaking: the Catholic church as an anti-liberal indoctrinating machine that steals children’s souls, the frailty of personal identity, and the struggle for liberation on an individual and societal level."
— Deborah Young, The Film Verdict
