Boys,

I watched the movie Acla yesterday ( (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) ), and I was really shocked. You all know that my favorite movies are boy-comedies. I love to see boys laugh, not cry.

For all who don't know the content: set in Sicily in the 1930's, director Aurelio Grimaldi chronicles the harsh life of 12 y/o Acla, sold by his father to work in the underground sulfur mines.
Imagine that: a father sells his own son to another person from Monday to Friday, including the right for the owner to beat him. For a work that is definitely unsuitable for children: tugging kilos of encumbrance through a mine!
Acla tries to escape this horror, but he gets caught and his father beats him half to death for that. Damn, you should hang animals like this in public!

The imdb says in their plot-description: "Brutal film about the exploitation of a young Italian boy, who is virtually sold to the operators of a sulphur mine where he is beaten and sexually molested." There is one pervert that always tries to abuse him sexually. Fortunately he doesn't succeed.

This isn't the type of film I can enjoy, but I see more sense in narrations like this than those of the type "For a lost soldier".

If you're interested in my boy-rating: 9/10.
No pics, sorry; this one is not available on DVD.

Sincerely,
Huck

I understand how good actors who play bad characters make us hate those characters so much that we can sometimes assume the actors must be like them. I think it's a mistake, however, to say that those roles must necessarily be played by people with sadistic minds. That's what the craft of acting is all about, pretending to be someone you're not, and if someone is capable of making such detestable characters seem believable, I say it's all the more impressive.

That said, I probably couldn't play those characters any more than you could, Sir Jacob. That's why I'm not an actor!