‘Now we want to try to conceptualise the chicken as the principal actor in the drama of modern life.’
A couple who run a state of the art chicken farm are unhappily married and both obsessed with her pretty blonde cousin. The arrival of a handsome publicity agent proves to be the catalyst that prompts intrigue, plans and betrayals that lead to murder…
Curious early Giallo picture from director and co-writer Giulio Questi, which tends to polarise audience opinion. The story itself is not too unusual; from the moment we learn that wife Gina Lollobrigida is the one with the money and husband Jean-Louis Trintignant is without, then we know we’re on familiar territory. Add live-in cute cousin Ewa Aulin and handsome suit Jean Sobieski to the mix, and it’s obvious there’s some plotting, double crosses to come and murder in the wind. The relationship dynamics of the quartet shift as often as their suspicions of each other and the story is quite well developed. There’s a couple of clever twists along the way too, even if the final wrap-up is a bit of a non-event.
What set this one apart is the way Questi handles the material. For a start, there’s his directorial style. He frequently favours extreme close-ups of the actor’s faces, which can be more than a little distracting and can over-exaggerate the performances of his cast. At tines, there’s some truly manic editing too; an early sequence of Trintignant driving is cut together with roadside publicity hoardings at such a rate as to almost qualify as subliminal advertising. It’s hard to see what Questi was going for here, unless he was attempting to show Trintignant’s fracturing psyche but, if that was the case, there are subtler ways to get that across.
There’s also a definite undercurrent of sleaze to these proceedings. Trintignant is regularly consorting with prostitutes, despite his declared love for Aulin, and these secret visits always involve his trusty blade. When Lollobrigida finds out about his infidelities, the two women talk it over. Their solution? To visit some downtown bars so they can learn to ‘dress like whores’ with Aulin insisting on choosing Lollobrigida’s underwear for her afterwards. It’s more like two teenage girls playing dress up than a serious response to a marital crisis. Additionally, a lot of the action is accompanied by Bruno Maderna’s avant-garde soundtrack. This is not music so much as an exercise in dissonance, an experimental cacophony that distracts from the story rather than serving it.
‘I feel like chicken tonight…’
But all that really takes second place to something that sits front and centre throughout the movie. And what is that something? Well… it’s chickens. Lots and lots of chickens. lf it’s not endless shots of the birds pecking seed in their cages at the farm, then it’s a visual reference to eggs of some kind. In almost every scene.
There are also several sub-plots about the fowl creatures that go absolutely nowhere; Sobieski presents Trintignant with some publicity drawings of chickens dressed as men for a new ad campaign, the farm’s former workers gather silently outside the new automated facility and allegedly commit vandalism on the premises. We also have mad scientist Renato Romano conducting some vague experiments with radiation. These lead to the birth of quick-growing birds with no heads or wings, which a disgusted Trintignant destroys in a fairly unpleasant scene. What has any of this to do with the main plot? Not a lot, as far as I could make out.
‘There’s nobody here but us chickens…’
Furthermore your enjoyment of the film may well be affected by how you feel about animal welfare. Although there are no specific scenes of cruelty, this is still a long, long way from free-range chicken farming and the sight of the birds cooped in their small cages may be upsetting for some. And its also probably best not to dwell on what happens to Lollobrigida’s dog.
Is the adoption of these ruthless methods of egg production supposed to reflect the greed and moral vacuum shared by our main protagonists? Was Questi’s intention to highlight issues of animal cruelty in modern agricultural processes? Does the brief musical fanfare that accompanies the closing credit card confirm that it was all meant to be a black comedy anyway? Not a clue.
Questi only had a short career behind the camera, his most notable other picture being ‘Django Kill!’ (1967) from the popular series of Westerns. Aulin starred as ‘Candy’ (1968) opposite Marlon Brando and had already appeared with Trintignant in ‘I Am What I Am’ (1967) another rather unusual stab at a Giallo film. She quit the business at the tender age of 23 and has kept out of the spotlight since. Lollobrigida, still looking fabulous in her forties, was coming to the end of a long career that included starring roles opposite David Niven, James Mason, Alec Guinness. Bob Hope, Rock Hudson, Sean Connery, Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart.
Unusual, one-off thriller that’s baffling and irritating in equal measure, but maybe worth a watch for curiosity value alone.
Mark David Welsh 