
Enzo looks handsome but dangerous, an impression that is backed up by the fact that he has spent much of his life behind bars. Yet he also has a soft side, says his wife Maria. She could see it in his eyes when she first met him.
Enzo and Maria proved to be a wonderful match. The rough, Italian macho man and the kind-hearted transsexual fell in love while they were in the same prison, and they are still together 20 years later. Their love is at the forefront of Pietro Marcello’s docudrama; in the turbulent background is the hard life in a poor neighborhood in Genoa, the history of the port city, and a past in Sicily.
Excerpts read from letters, archival footage of life in Genoa, and reenacted scenes combine to produce a raw but romantic portrait of a city and a couple. For director Marcello, who made his reputation with a number of documentaries, The Mouth of the Wolf marked a transition to a more hybrid narrative form. He has since made the award-winning feature films Bella e perduta (2015) and Martin Eden (2019).