The Secret Drawer is, at times, a poignant love letter to a father, a sentiment many of us wish we could craft for our own parents. Constanza Quatriglio’s documentary is personal and heartfelt, almost to a fault. In truth, some will struggle with it due to its repetitiveness over its two-hour runtime, but for those who have experienced the loss of a parent and the dismantling of their physical memories, it is achingly beautiful.

Giuseppe Quatriglio was a Sicilian journalist, author and globetrotter. Smart, hungry for life, and good-looking, he filled a house with books, texts and mementoes. It was in this rich environment that Costanza grew up. In 2022, she returns to her family home in Palermo to welcome a team of archivists and librarians. Through photographs, 8mm film and audio recordings from the 1940s onward, along with footage the director shot of her father 12 years prior, both a collective and personal memory come together; each remembrance tied not only to a life lived but to a history of the 20th century.

There is a quiet resignation in The Secret Drawer with the inevitability of death. Everything we have collected and all our work will one day be gone, be it to other family members or archivists. No longer ours to own and be proud of. We see book by book, photo album by album, and 8mm reels slowly removed and off to their new home, leaving you sombre. This wonderful feast of information is now gone from this home and the person who owned and made it all. It doesn’t feel right to box up such items, even if they are to get a new life. It feels like moving on, defiling a place you cherished when young, desecrating the person’s memory. Doing this as Constanza does after Giuseppe’s death is almost like another funeral; now the person is gone, and the physical memories of him leave you too; it’s heartbreaking, but something nearly every child must endure in their life.

For those of us who have experienced this, seeing this repeated ad nauseum throughout The Secret Drawer is like a dagger slowly twisting, the shelves emptying in a way they most likely haven’t looked in Constanza’s entire lifetime, is as cruel as it is necessary to watch. Sure, it is repetitive, but for some viewers, it will be an aching of a memory of our own experiences of doing it.

When the film veers towards being a testimonial in the first half to the work of Giuseppe and his journalistic travels throughout his life. From what we can see, he had lived the fullest of lives. His perspective on some historical moments, especially in Sicily, is interesting, to say the least; it’s a different one from the 40s onwards that we are used to seeing. This is where the film has you, and while the second half diverts more to Constanza and the move of the items, it loses some of what made the film work so well. Yet you almost feel that Constanza needed to see the endless books and photos, etc., and begin their new life away from her father, away from her. You feel that almost grief and it’s painful but necessary for her to document.

The film could be shorter, but when it becomes such a personal endeavour, you have to let the film flow and appreciate it for what it is. Sure, cutting some things here and there would make it a more fluid piece, but The Secret Drawer isn’t meant to be like that; it is intended to be a new permanent iteration of Giuseppe, It organised chaos and once you realise that, you can’t help but admire it. This is its own breathing, living thing; it is Giuseppe in all his glory, so if it’s two hours, so be it.

Other than than the Quatriglio’s the star of The Secret Drawer is the late editor Letizia Caudullo, who seamlessly cuts from Constanza’s footage of the home full to the brim with history to its slowly vacant shell it eventually becomes. There has been so much care put in here by the editor, as we see the archived media assembled and spliced throughout the film. Considering the sheer amount of content she had to work with, what she achieves in The Secret Drawer is wonderful and a testament to her talent. Without her being able to reign in Quatriglio and keep an outsider’s view of it all, the film could have become a wandering mess. Instead, it’s controlled, and all the better for her integral input.

The Secret Drawer is a uniquely personal documentary that it almost feels perverse to watch. Quatriglio has poured her heart into this film, into the memory of her father, and you can only respect the beauty of the care in this wonderful love letter to the man’s legacy.

★★★★

The Secret Drawer is showing on Sun 21st July at Bertha Doc House during the Cinecittà Italian Doc Fest which is a two-day celebration of Italian film, on Sat 20 and Sun 21 Jul. See the full line up here.

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