Hide and Seek review – devastating, dazzling study of Italian street crime

Victoria Fiore’s poetic doc traces Naples’ cycle of youth imprisonment via four years in the life of mischievous Entoni

In the winding streets of Naples’s notorious Spanish quarter, haunted by gang violence, a cycle of incarceration grinds on. Entoni, a mischievous, charismatic force of nature who likes to get into trouble, exasperates his grandmother Dora and mother Natalia. Victoria Fiore’s shattering documentary observes him over four years as he grows, witnessing how his adolescent rebellion results in a forced stay at a reform facility and later youth prison.

Instead of the realist style often employed in social-issue documentaries, Fiore lends a dose of poetry to the depiction of Entoni’s everyday life. The pleasures of a summer swim, or aimlessly hanging out with a best friend, are beautifully conjured. The fleetingness of these experiences becomes heartbreaking when, charged with setting fire to a car, Entoni is sent to a home for troubled children as the government cracks down on crime.