Damiano Damiani is well-known for his hard-boiled Italian crime thrillers, his most popular films including The Day of the Owl, Confessions of a Police Captain, and The Case is Closed, Forget It. In 1979 Damiani again partnered with actor Giuliano Gemma for A Man On His Knees (Un uomo in ginocchio), a simmering pot boiler about a man whose prior car theft convictions begin to put him on both the wrong side of the law and in danger of a hit from a group of mafiosi who think he might have had something to do with the kidnapping of a prestigious lawyer’s wife. His nemesis is Platamonte (Michele Placido), a hired hitman who has been carrying out the Don’s bidding but who ultimately begins to work with Gemma’s character Nino Peralta once he gets the feeling that he’s truly innocent. There are double-crossings, fishhouse murders, car thefts, and a whole lot more in Peralta’s quest to clear his name.
The interesting thing about A Man On His Knees is that Damiani doesn’t succinctly introduce the viewer to the conceit. Much like Peralta, we’re thrown into the mix and swept up in a number of different crime syndicates along the way. The film drops names of goons as though we, and Peralta, should know them, but it often forces the viewer to piece together the requisite parts of the embroiling chaos in which Peralta is wrapped. This also means that the viewer is never quite sure of Peralta’s innocence either, a motif that plays out again and again within the film; in Damiani’s Palermo, Italy, there’s crime everywhere, and it’s hard to tell who’s involved and to what extent. And as Damiani reveals, Peralta was a car thief arrested for his crimes in the past, so of course the police don’t immediately rule him out as a suspect.
A Man On His Knees follows Peralta as his situation continually escalates, and Damiani’s pacing is excellent since there’s a literal countdown of bodies to carry the movie forward. The word on the street is that eight people will pay the price; as the movie progresses, that body count begins to tally up, leaving Peralta more and more desperate to plead his case to whoever thinks he was involved. It leads to a number of cat-and-mouse moments between Peralta and Platamonte, who we later learn is also carrying out the bidding of a higher power simply out of necessity to feed his family. Damiani expertly crafts two figures who at first feel like foils until the thrilling conclusion, where we learn that they’re much more alike than they at first seem.
Unlike some other poliziotteschi that rely on detectives or police as main characters, A Man On His Knees simply involves a random bystander to crime; but at the same time, it comments on how criminality can be inescapable for those caught up in the wide swath of its destruction. The circular arc of Peralta’s life leads to a particularly devastating conclusion wherein he becomes exactly the kind of man he was trying to avoid, roped into killing despite trying to walk the straight line. A Man On His Knees is a compelling film for those reasons as well as the excellent interplay between Gemma and Placido, and certainly one of the better films in the poliziotteschi sub-genre where crime is not the main motivation.
Blu-ray
Radiance Films has released A Man On His Knees to join a few other Damiani films in their canon including the Cosa Nostra boxset and Goodbye & Amen. This one gets a new 4K transfer from the film’s original negative maintaining the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The results are quite good, with an overall filmic appearance thanks to the film’s medium-high body grain scale that compliments the grittier elements of the movie’s themes. The grain resolves nicely and doesn’t ever look particularly chunky or streaky, and this is readily apparent in the film’s close-up shots of Gemma’s stubbly facial hair or the various Italian textures on display. There are a couple occasional instances of damage and visual lines, and the film does employ something of a bright, glowy color grade; but overall A Man On His Knees looks great and fits right at home with the rest of Damiani’s filmography on Blu-ray.
Audio is presented with an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 mono Italian track with English subtitles. The audio fares well, though there is a bit of consistent muffling throughout with dialogue. The sinuous score by Franco Mannino sounds lush and manages to envelope the film in a particularly atmospheric intrigue.
For extras, Radiance Films has assembled a new interview with Damiani film historian Alberto Pezzotta to discuss Damiani’s mafia filmography, including Day of the Owl, Confessions of a Police Captain, and more specifically A Man On His Knees. This is an enlightening amount of information about Damiani’s interest in mafioso activities and the overarching themes at play in this film. The Blu-ray also contains archival interviews with Giuliano Gemma, Tano Cimarosa, and Mino Giarda, all of which paint a picture of Damiani as a filmmaker. Finally, there’s also a trailer on the disc.
In the limited edition release, Radiance also provides a booklet essay by Roberto Curti, who also explores the themes of mafia culture in Italy in A Man On His Knees and identifies the parallels between Peralta and Placido throughout the movie. Reversible cover artwork is available as well.
Extra Features
- NEW 4K restoration from the original negative
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- Archival interview with Giuliano Gemma (1080p; 8:45)
- Archival interview with Tano Cimarosa (720p; 8:59)
- Archival interview with Mino Giarda (720p; 20:41)
- NEW interview with Alberto Pezzotta, author of Regia Damiano Damiani (1080p; 23:44)
- Trailer (1080p; 3:15)
- NEW Reversible sleeve featuring original and commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
- NEW Booklet featuring writing by Roberto Curti
- Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
Verdict
A Man On His Knees is a particularly engrossing film about mafia life and its widespread impact to the community, and Radiance has released an excellent Blu-ray with a great transfer and plenty of collected extras. Recommended.
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