La scuola cattolica (2021)

Rome, 1975. Edoardo attends the private Catholic boys’ school San Luigi Institute in the upscale Parioli district. Among his classmates are the shy, submissive Salvatore Izzo, brother of the more streetwise Angelo; the exceptionally intelligent Alessandro Arbus, son of a university professor of mathematical logic, who wants to graduate a year early because he is fed up with high school; Picchiatello, or “Pik,” Martirolo, a troubled boy whose mother is a beautiful former actress; and Gioacchino Rummo, the son of a large family whose religious devotion borders on bigotry. Other figures orbit around them, including Gianni Guido, Angelo’s closest friend, whose father Raffaele is particularly demanding and violent, as well as other boys and girls experiencing late adolescence just as they are. Edoardo watches them closely, maintaining an almost always detached stance, and realizes that the strict morality taught at school brings out the many contradictions in their little community, where the weaker are always dominated by the stronger, and any ambition, fantasy, or impulse to rebel is promptly suppressed at school and/or at home. In the early months of the year, Edoardo and his friends face the usual problems of their age, such as their disastrous attempts to approach girls. Gradually, however, increasingly disturbing situations begin to emerge. Arbus, for instance, manages to graduate, but immediately afterward his father runs away after declaring that he is gay; Pik discovers that his mother is having a sexual relationship with his schoolmate Stefano Jervi; the Rummo family loses its youngest daughter in tragic circumstances, an event that scars them all for life; and Angelo suspects that Salvatore has latent homosexual feelings and constantly provokes him, even going so far as to molest some girls. Edoardo is invited to a meeting of a satanic sect made up of his classmates and friends, and is both fascinated and frightened by it. One afternoon, after leaving the cinema, two girls, Donatella Colasanti and her friend Nadia Campoli, miss the tram and hitchhike home. Gian Pietro, a friend of Angelo, Gianni, and Andrea, stops in his car and, giving the false name “Carlo,” drives them to Montagnola, near EUR, in the area where they live. On his way back, Gian Pietro arrives late for his appointment with the other friends. He explains that he was delayed because he met the two girls and had to drive them from one end of Rome to the other. He then shows them that one of the girls had written her phone number on his hand. Intrigued, Angelo and Gianni ask Gian Pietro to call her, arrange a date, and introduce them. The three then decide to meet the girls at the bar in the EUR water tower known as the “Mushroom.” Donatella and Rosaria Lopez show up, but Nadia does not, as she has another commitment. Gian Pietro refuses to stay with them and, using an excuse, leaves the two girls in Angelo and Gianni’s company. They persuade the girls to go to the cinema with them the following Monday. When Monday afternoon arrives, Angelo and Gianni go to meet them at the cinema, but decide to change their plans and suggest to Donatella and Rosaria that they go to a seaside villa, without saying that it is at Circeo, and tell them that “Carlo” will join them later. Once they arrive, the violence begins soon afterward. For two days, Angelo and Gianni rape and torture them. The following afternoon, they are joined by their friend—and the owner of the villa—Andrea Ghira, who uses the pseudonym “Jacques” so as not to be recognized. Rosaria dies during the violence inflicted on the girls, while Donatella survives by pretending to be dead. She is found alive, wrapped in plastic bags in the trunk of Gianni’s Fiat 127, lying beneath Rosaria’s body. Angelo and Gianni are captured and imprisoned, but the crime shocks the entire school and leads Edoardo to reflect that, in some way, the hypocrisy of Catholic morality caused this and all the other tragedies. At the end of the story, captions explain that Angelo Izzo, released in 2005, went on to kill two more women; Gianni Guido was released in 2009 after escaping from prison; Andrea, who managed to flee, died a fugitive in Morocco in 1994; and Donatella died at just 47 in 2005. After the trial for the Circeo Massacre, public debate about rape begins; only in 1996 does it cease to be a crime against public morality and become a crime against the person.