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The Italian mini-series “The Case of Elisa Claps” / Per Elisa – Il caso Klaps, 2023, 6 episodes, directed by Marco Pontecorvo, is based on real events, this is a film adaptation of Tobias Jones’ book “Blood on the Altar”, created in collaboration with the Klaps family.
It all started in Potenza in 1993, when 16-year-old Eliza decided to meet Danilo Restivo (Julio Della Monica) at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Sunday, he allegedly wanted to give her a gift. This Danilo was a very strange type and was clearly obsessed with Eliza, and he also suffered from such a mania - seeing the long hair of a girl, he often tried to cut off strands of hair, for which he constantly carried scissors. He had a whole collection of these strands. Eliza, out of kindness of heart and condescension, forgave him his strangeness. No one else has seen Eliza since that meeting. The family tried to report them to the police immediately, but they refused to accept the application because they were only accepted after 48 hours. Suspicion immediately falls on Danilo. The Claps family, represented by Gildo’s eldest son, who is studying to be a lawyer (he is played by Gianmarco Saurino in the film), tries to intensify the search, but to no avail, the police and the prosecutor’s office do not particularly try and in general their main version is that she left home herself. Danilo is also defended by his father, who first sends him out of the city and then puts a lawyer to him. Nothing can be proved then. Gildo does not rest, in the end, he, along with his associates in the person of a local priest, with whom he is introduced by his friend, who later became his wife, organizes a special fund to search for missing people and in the end they manage to achieve a change in the law, now you can file a missing person immediately, they create a database, with their help it is possible to find the missing.
What about finding the killer? Danilo Restivo moves to England, in Bournemouth, where he first cohabits, and then marries an Italian woman. But he does not give up his studies, after some time his neighbor is found murdered, suspicion again falls on him, he is even arrested, but again nothing can be proved, he quite skillfully covers his tracks. Gildo comes there, meets with the investigator, tells him about Eliza, but since Eliza's body has never been found, it is difficult to combine the two cases. And Danilo again escapes from responsibility, but he continues to be watched, once he almost gets caught, but again escapes. But one day in Potenza, 17 years later, Eliza’s body is found in the attic of the Holy Trinity Church. One examination is carried out, which does not find anything, but relatives (and by that time the second brother has long been working in the police) require re-examination, methods for detecting DNA traces are improved, Danilo’s DNA is found, and almost at the same time they are found with the help of again re-examination and in England on items from the scene of the murder of a neighbor. Danilo is arrested, at first the English court decides to try him only for this crime, but then the judge agrees to combine the two cases, he is tried in England and in Italy and sentenced to life imprisonment, now he is in prison.
The film, of course, is interesting because it shows the imperfection of the judicial system, as well as not always a responsible attitude to the conduct of the investigation, because if the police did not close the investigation for the first time, maybe they would have found the body, and the then priest did not let them into the attic. Later it was suggested that the remains could have been found earlier, but no one was informed about it. Maybe there wouldn't have been a second murder, nobody knows at all, maybe there were other victims.
The series is not bad, I watched it with interest. Well-chosen actors, the actor playing the killer is really disgusting in this image.
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