SIFF 2023: 'Burning Hearts' Capsule Review

What if Romeo and Juliet but with warring small town Italian farm mob families? That’s the basic conceit of Pippo Mezzapesa’s Burning Hearts, where a forbidden romance shatters a fragile truce and stirs up a generational blood feud.

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Shot in stunning black and white, an ideal choice for a world awash in a spectrum of grays, and heavy on the religious symbology, it doesn’t take long before these families descend into a twisted abyss of violent retribution, paranoia, and betrayal that will mar the faces of generations to come. Even if it does drag out the drama from time to time. “The cows of peace have become the cows of war.”  [Grade: B]

 

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