In this movie, we see the struggle between two human laws: the law of the family and the law of the state. As in Sophocles’s Antigone, the law of the family is represented by a young woman, Rita (Veronica D’Agostino), and the law of the state by an elderly man, the prosecutor (Gérard Jugnot). The law of the state is about impartial judgment and punishment; the law of the family is about revenge, settling old scores, justice for the dead. The state wants to dominate the family, but the family has no respect for the laws of the state. The family, which is more ancient than the state, will bury and revenge its dead.
When Rita’s family is reduced to her and her mother, she turns to the ultimate Mafia enemy, the state, to revenge the murders of her father and brother. But in the eyes of the state, her father and brother are no better than the men who killed them. “Your father was a killer,” declares the state. “My father was the best man on earth,” declares the heart of the family. In Rita’s raw world, there are those who are good to the family and those who are bad to the family. This view of things, this order, this amoral familism, has no currency with the state, which organizes society into those who break its laws, criminals, and those who don’t, law abiders. Like some wild animal, Rita is totally indifferent to the prosecutor’s lectures about how human society must work; all she wants is revenge, and she will use anything to get this revenge. Even when she eats a tomato, she can taste the blood of her enemies. Mafia cinema will never die. 
