Continuing a recent trend of contemporary gangster films made outside of the genre’s usual trappings and stock characters, Black Souls stands as the leader of the revisionist pack following films like Gomorrah (2008) and Animal Kingdom (2010). Depicting the lives of three brothers working for the ‘ndrangheta mafia, Black Souls delivers the saga of their family’s inevitable downfall, destined for oblivion within an organisation and culture built upon vendettas and honour killings.

At the film’s centre is Luciano, the only brother not to involve himself in the criminal activity of his other siblings, who lives a quiet life of farming in a remote country village. His son, however, is lured by the exciting life of his uncles Rocco and Luigi, and leaves his father behind after making a misjudged attempt to impress his extended family by shooting up a rival family’s storefront. His actions, however, spark a war between the two strands of the ‘ndrangheta, leading to a bloody game of one-upmanship which threatens to condemn the entire family, be they involved in the mafia or not.

Unlike David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom, a film with which Black Souls shares a lot of similarities, director Francesco Munzi allows us enough time with each family member to fully understand where everyone stands within the hierarchy. He also clearly understands the importance of restraint, emphasizing the consequences of violence and not its immediate practice, detaching the film from the genre’s more traditional focus on the spectacle of violence and action, in contrast to something like the recent Brad Pitt vehicle Killing Them Softly (2012) which called back to the stylised, almost balletic depiction of violence made famous by the likes of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). There is no glamour in Black Souls, and whereas the same can be said of Animal Kingdom, the former communicates the crippling atmosphere of paranoia and the inevitable escalation of violence on a far superior scale than the Australian effort ever accomplished.

Allowing the tension to build gradually towards the film’s unexpected and brilliantly devastating finale, Black Souls is one of the most compelling gangster films of recent years and certainly a personal highlight of the London Film Festival.