by Andrea Baker and Kristen Scott
Holy Cannoli is a hilarious, and at times absurd, romantic comedy about a real estate agent in Palermo whose religion is Sicilian desserts (not Catholicism) and the quest for amore (love).
Directed by, and starring Italian satirist Pierfrancesco “Pif” Diliberto, this film is based on his 2018 best-selling novel, Che Dio perdona a tutti (adapted in English as May God Forgive Everyone).
Cannoli is a popular Sicilian dessert with a deep-fried pastry shell filled with sweet, creamy ricotta. ‘Holy cannoli!’ is a popular Italian euphemism for expressing surprise in a lighthearted way, while avoiding religious profanity in Italy, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.
A smash homeland hit, Holy Cannoli opened the Italian film festival around Australia this week to rapturous applause.
Soccer to sweet sensations in Sicily
Like Diliberto’s directorial hit debut, The Mafia Kills only in Summer (2013), about childhood and first love set in 1970s Italy, the central protagonist in Holy Cannoli is called Arturo, and his love interest is a bella donna named Flora.
Holy Cannoli opens with Arturo as a young boy, glued to the television broadcast of the 1982 FIFA World Cup: Italy vs Brazil. He prays for God’s intervention in a winning outcome for the Italian team. Italy defeats Brazil 3-2 in a legendary second-round group match.
Rather than collapsing into magical thinking and concluding that his prayers are powerful, Arturo has his first existential crisis. Surely, he wonders, there must be another boy, far away in Brazil, who prayed equally as hard as he did, who wished for Brazil to win the title? Therefore, God cannot exist! However, the film fails to show that Italy did win the World Cup back then by defeating West Germany 3–1 in the final.
Against the backdrop of historic Palermo buildings, shaped by centuries of Arab, Turkish, Greek, Italian and Norman tradition, the film immerses you in the tantalising array of Sicilian desserts from Cannoli, then cassata (Sicilian sponge cake moistened with fruit juice or liqueur), to the ‘sciu’, the classic cream puff, which the main actor, estate agent Arturo (played by Diliberto), gorges on with wonderfully slapstick passion.
As our taste buds water for these sweet delights, passionate love emerges when Arturo helps Flora (played by Giusy Buscemi), a daughter of a well-known pastry chef, to find a place to start her own patisserie.
A former Miss Italia (2012), and a well-known television and film star in her homeland, Buscemi plays Flora, a beautiful, graceful pastry virtuoso who balances comedic wit with a pious Catholic faith.
To win Flora’s heart, the sweet-toothed sceptic Arturo pretends to be a devout Catholic, and this is where religious profanity is peak comedy.
Finding my religion in the quest for love
A regular motif in Holy Cannoli is Arturo sitting in a confession box in church talking with the fictionalised Argentine Pope Francis, played by Carlos Hipólito, a Spanish television and film star.
Bumbling trivial banter between the pontiff and Arturo about the popular Sicilian street food, Arancini balls (risotto rice, a filling, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried until golden brown) demonstrates the film’s characteristically dry humour. Repetitive exchanges about whether they like white (filled with melted mozzarella cheese) or black (filled with meat sauce with peas) Arancini balls will educate you about Sicilian cuisine.
One night after bingeing on sciu, locked in a sugar coma, Arturo visualises Pope Francis in his apartment. The pontiff emerges as the ghostly spiritual mentor in Arturo’s religious quest to win over the religious heart of pastry queen, Flora.
Some of the funniest dialogue in Holy Cannoli arises from Arturo’s earnest attempt to practice Christianity, and the Stations of the Cross scene is a standout for the entire cast. This scene is vaguely similar to what audiences see in Monty Python’s 1979 satirical film, Life of Brian, about a Judean man, Brian Cohen, who is mistakenly identified as the Messiah.
Professed Catholic versus self-interest
Thought-provoking, comedic timing emerges when Arturo discovers that following God’s Gospel demand for honesty renders his success as an estate agent almost impossible.
“You can either be a good Christian or a good real-estate agent; you can’t be both,” the pontiff tells Arturo.
When Arturo tells prospective buyers in Palermo the truth about an unsellable apartment, it leaves his colleagues wondering whether he’s truly lost the plot.
Flora thinks Arturo has taken his Catholicism to great lengths when he gives his clothes away, lends his car out to strangers, and hosts an unnamed Black male immigrant, but when she finally meets the fictional Pope in a café, the plot twists.
In this sharp Sicilian satire by Diliberto, an edited version of Dean Martin’s popular song, That’s Amore is apt: In (Napoli) Sicily, where love is king, when a boy meets a girl, that’s amore…
ST ALI. Italian film festival runs until 16 October. Holy Cannoli will also release in Australian cinemas from 22 October
