Salvo is an enforcer and hit-man for a local mafioso known simply as 'Boss'. Following an attempt to ambush and murder Boss, Salvo hunts down the perpetrator, a local criminal rival, and kills him. Unfortunately the perpetrator, Renato, has a sight-impaired sister, Rita, who witnesses her brother's death. Rather than kill Rita Salvo takes her hostage and hides her in a disused quarry, which is the burial site for Boss's multiple victims.

What follows is a slow and intense process by which we see Salvo, an inscrutable individual of few words, redeem himself. His redemption is accompanied by Rita regaining her sight, in a way that is not made clear and felt unsatisfactory to me. Nonetheless there was sufficient integrity in the film that I accepted this change, which feeds the theme of redemption.

The film is without incidental music/soundtrack and has lots of long shots with abstract visuals, especially where the intent is to recreate the world as Rita perceives it. This was very well done. The colour palette is mostly blue/grey/black with bursts of white. All these choices create a brooding and reflective mood. They evoke well how Salvo and Rita might feel in their situations and predicaments. There are moments of quiet humour too though these serve to underline the intense concentration of the film rather than disrupt it.

Led by Saleh Bakri the minimal cast were superb. The actress who plays Rita was most effective as a blind/sight-impaired character. The scene where Bakri as Salvo does a reconnoitre of Renato's house while simultaneously avoiding and stalking Rita was superb. Rita's slow realisation that she is not alone in the house and in danger was so well conveyed by the actress, Sara Serraiocco. This was my favourite scene closely followed by the final one, about which I will say no more.

The plot suggests one type of film but in actuality it is an independent art house product. Insular and focused on character development where mood and lighting are more prevalent than words and as significant. It is slow, detailed and demands a type of attention from the viewer not required by most action films.

Salvo synopsis may seem like a tear jerker melodrama, but it isn't. This is the European art film at its best. Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai may come to your minds, but even that is like blockbuster in comparison with Salvo. Long shots, minimum of words, no music - that is Salvo. Salvo Mancuso. He is defined by his acts, not his words. The plot is revealed slowly and if you are right kind of spectator, you will enjoy calm atmosphere of this movie. There are some great sequences I won't spoil. This is definitely that kind of film where directors precisely thanked about each shot. This is sad film about lonely people who "live their lives like a rats" (a sentence one of the character says in the movie). If you want to be enjoyed, look somewhere else. if you like film noir, slow films and films where you see the creators know their work with images and sound, this might be for you.

It's certainly original. Name me another Mafioso hit-man movie that has at its centre a blind heroine whose traumatic experience at the hands of a killer seems to reverse the effects of her blindness. If we are in the territory of miraculous cures Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's movie never stresses the fact but proceeds to take us down roads we may not be used to. A mostly silent Saleh Bakri is Salvo who, on a job to kill the man who has set him up, encounters the victim's blind sister, Rita, and rather than kill her takes her along for the ride. However, it would appear the shock has restored Rita's sight, at least partially, which seems as devastating to her as being kidnapped by a hit-man. Sara Serraiocco is excellent as Rita and Bakri is highly effective in the title role, particularly in view of the fact that he hardly ever opens his mouth.

Even leaving aside the blind girl scenario, "Salvo" is unusual in other ways. Salvo is fundamentally an existentialist character who hides away from the world and is waited on hand and foot. His encounter with Rita opens his eyes as much as it does hers, awakening in him a tenderness he may not have realized was there. It's also a film that takes its time. Salvo and Rita are often the only characters we see and the conventional thrills of the Mafioso movie are conspicuously absent. Nor is it a conventional love story; the relationship that develops between captor and captive doesn't go along conventional lines and, like much else in the picture, is mostly conducted in silence and in darkness. Like I said, it's certainly original.