‘Even in the skyscrapers of our modern cities, a certain fear rides the hot winds.’
A young woman is unsettled by strange occurrences in her everyday life. Are they linked to the memories she has repressed of her mother’s suicide, or is something more tangible threatening her?…
Unusual psychodrama from director Francesco Barilli that comes with a few Giallo touches, which has sometimes led to the film being tagged with that label. Mimsy Farmer takes centre stage, with support from Maurizio Bonuglia and Mario Scaccia.
Pretty young blonde Silvia Hacherman (Farmer) seems to have it all: a luxury apartment, a successful career and handsome boyfriend, Roberto (Bonuglia). Yet something is wrong. On a night out at the house of academic Andy (Jho Jenkins), the talk turns to voodoo and the supernatural, and Farmer feels increasingly uneasy. Everyday interactions with shopkeepers and tradesmen seem oddly sinister, and her state of mind isn’t helped by over attentive elderly neighbour, Signor Rossetti (Scaccia).
Against her better judgment, she submits to a reading by blind medium, Orchidea (Nike Arrighi), and her grip on reality begins to disintegrate. She sees a lady in black putting on perfume in a mirror in an empty bedroom and a flashback to the night of her mother’s suicide. Then, a little girl (Lara Wendel) suddenly appears in her apartment and becomes her constant companion, but is she real or just a symptom of Farmer’s fracturing psyche?
There’s a fair bit to unpack in Barilli’s film, which has aspects both likely to impress and alienate in equal measure. Its most obvious virtue is the technical expertise on display. Mario Masini’s cinematography is gorgeous, and the high-quality visual presentation enhances the unsettling atmosphere that Barilli conjures with a light, almost fleeting, touch. These early scenes are the most effective in the picture, Farmer’s growing paranoia wonderfully evoked by a combination of performance, direction and style. It’s quite an achievement, considering this was Barilli’s debut feature.
The film’s other main strength is Farmer herself. This project is almost a showcase for the actor as she’s present in virtually every shot, and she grasps the opportunity with both hands, delivering an excellent portrayal of a woman losing her grip on reality. The supporting cast provides her with solid support, especially Scaccia, but it’s her show. A traumatic event imperfectly remembered from the protagonist’s past is a well-worn Giallo trope and, aside from Farmer’s presence and the high visual quality, gives sufficient explanation for its association with those Italian horror thrillers. But the film eventually emerges as more of a mashup between ‘Repulsion’ (1965) and ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968), two celebrated works from Polish director Roman Polanski.
Unfortunately, it is in the story that the entire enterprise runs onto the rocks. The first act is nicely handled, but as Farmer’s problems develop, Barilli steps over the line from meaningful narrative into stylistic exercise, and the thread of the mystery is lost. It’s self-evident who little girl Wendel is supposed to be, and that revelation leaves the audience adrift, unclear if anything that’s transpiring on the screen is real. This kind of conceit is a difficult trick to pull off, and despite Farmer’s excellence, the audience will likely lose any emotional connection to the character or the story. The repeated references to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ are also hammered home with a depressing lack of subtlety.
The ending is highly divisive and pitches the project firmly into horror territory. The main problem with the twist is that it’s been foreshadowed in only the vaguest terms, and, given that the story lost its grounding in reality sometime earlier, it’s likely to shock due to its graphic presentation alone rather than for any true psychological impact. It is possible that Barilli was trying to make a point about how contemporary society treats an independent young woman. However, the haphazard structure of the plot makes it seem far more likely that he wanted to create a cheap talking point that would get him noticed rather than make any kind of artistic point.
One place where the film scores is an excellent supporting turn by Arrighi as the blind medium. Although she did not have a long career, her presence is likely to raise a smile with horror fans who remember her falling under the influence of the sinister Charles Gray in Hammer’s superlative ‘The Devil Rides Out’ (1968). She appeared in several other notable films, although always in supporting roles and sometimes uncredited. These included Ken Russell’s ‘Women in Love’ (1969) and ‘The Devils’ (1971), François Truffaut’s ‘Day for Night/La nuit américaine’ (1973) and another notable Hammer picture ‘Countess Dracula’ (1971). She also made a brief appearance in an episode of seminal science fiction TV classic ‘The Prisoner’ with Patrick McGoohan.
Berilli followed up his debut feature with another chiller, ‘Hotel Fear/Pensione paura’ (1978), but his subsequent output was fairly sporadic. He worked on television and moved into documentary filmmaking in the 1990s. Before moving behind the camera, he was an actor and had the opportunity to fulfil both roles in ‘La casa nel vento dei morti/The House in the Wind of Dead’ (2012), playing a leading role and directing a short sequence. As of writing, he is still active, writing and directing the award-winning science fiction short subject ‘L’urlo’ (2019). It was a remake of a film he had co-written and starred in 53 years earlier.
A beautifully made exercise in style that turns out to be all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Mark David Welsh 