the dubious charms of GIALLO A VENEZIA (1979)

 

Venice is a playground for strictly softcore perversion in this film by trash genius Mario Landi (who helmed some of the hugely successful 1970's 'comissario Maigret' series for Italian television).

Not a movie to watch with your girlfriend, GIALLO A VENEZIA is an exercise in misogyny.

Two corpses are discovered at the Giudecca island in the Venetian lagoon. The man was repeatedly stabbed in the crotch with a huge pair of scissors, woman - drowned. Why did the killer himself phone to notify the police and why did he drag the woman's body out of the water after drowning her? Inspector De Paul is on the case... 

Judging by lack of elaborate mise-en-scene and limited number of locations, GIALLO A VENEZIA may have well been filmed in under two weeks.

Dialogues are hilarious in their crudeness.

The inappropriately bright & breezy Berto Pisano score (at least some of which was lifted from INTERRABANG soundtrack) is a bonus.

What this film lacks in substance it makes up in sheer bad taste.

If GIALLO A VENEZIA excites you, you know you're a trash fan at heart.

You might also want to check out the director's similarly demented and un-PC, but slightly more polished PATRICK VIVE ANCORA (1980)

 

No, this isn't a young Vladimir Putin!

It's Italian cult actor Gianni Dei.

an ode to NOSFERATU A VENEZIA (1988)

A review at CINEZILLA blog prompted me to seek out and watch NOSFERATU A VENEZIA.

Tired looking, morbid Klaus creates another haunting hero in this expensive looking, baroque and occasionally rambling tale of the ancient vampire curse.

Late 1980's was a bad period for Italian film industry. Shit like ZOMBI 3 was playing in theatres, and masters such as Argento were using awfully inappropriate metal music to score their elegant films. 

It is in such a difficult time that NOSFERATU A VENEZIA was made.

I can think of few Italian films from that era that looked as lush or were as atmospheric as NOSFERATU A VENEZIA.

Considering the fact that no less than three (or, perhaps, five) different directors were involved with the project, NOSFERATU A VENEZIA forms a surprisingly harmonious whole.

Editing doesn't have a rhythm typical of Italian genre productions. We have something a little more elaborate and clearly more ambitious here, but also more confusing. The bloody story of the immortal seems to develop on several time planes at once - very appropriate for a picture that deals with a being outside time.

 

There's a scene of Nosferatu wandering along the shore at night. He encounters some gypsies. Is it another flashback? There's no indication of the epoch in which the episode takes place, not until we see the gypsies' very modern caravans.

Cinematography exhibits that lovely heavy grain and rich colours which characterize the finest European cinema of those times. 

Beauty and poetry aside, NOSFERATU A VENEZIA has undeniable trash appeal. Scenes of Kinski chasing girls through the streets of Venice and ripping clothes off nubile virgins should make fans of wild European cinema cheer.

Kinski is one of very few actors who could make a convincing  vampire. His own face was by 1988 a haunting mask, and didn't need excessive make-up.

Kinski, who looks just as natural and convincing dressed in a period costume as he did when wearing various swanky outfits in his 70's films, dominates every scene he's in. He looks more  like the titular character of Herzog's COBRA VERDE than of NOSFERATU.

The good guys are dull, dim-witted loser types and their failure to deal with the decadent blood-sucker is unsurprising.

Donald Pleasence is cast in a totally redundant part of a cowardly clergyman. Nevertheless, he does get an opportunity to shine in his final scene.

NOSFERATU A VENEZIA is an example of tremendous poetic effect achieved through episodic narration  and one of the more interesting vampire films out there.

impenetrable INNOCENCE (2004)

 

Mechanised sex dolls slaughtering soldiers with their bare hands, a cyborg cop looking after his pet Basset Hound (also cybernetic) and lots of quotes from various philosophers. Does it all mix well? You decide.

INNOCENCE's stylish, gorgeous look kept me glued to the screen despite the deliberate pace and fractured, cryptic story.

Even during the well-thought-out action scenes there's not much sense of dynamism.

As a rule I dislike use of CGI in cinema. INNOCENCE uses 3D modelling to a striking effect, which couldn't have been achieved without the use of computer graphics. My favourite aspect of production design was the cars, which, when on screen, eclipsed the sullen protagonists.

A version of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjues (a piece which Mario Bava used in LISA E IL DIAVOLO ) plays on the closing credits.

INNOCENCE is not a thrill ride, but a visual stunner and one of the most intelligent and ambitious animated films I've ever seen.

riding the SHOCK WAVES (1976)

A group of thinly-written stereotypical characters is cruising some tropical islands aboard an old yacht which belongs to a nutty Captain (John Carradine).

At night the holidaymakers' fragile vessel is hit by a 'ghost ship' and promptly starts sinking, forcing everyone to  get into a dingy and seek help on the nearest island, where a former Nazi (Peter Cushing) is living in 'voluntary exile'. Soon creepy goggled zombies come out of the sea and begin picking off the living one by one.

The best scenes of SHOCK WAVES seem to be wonderfully atmospheric silent film.  Uniformed automatons wading through the water and doomed characters wandering about the deserted island.

Lack of a strong identification point really hurts the film.

Despite being introduced as protagonist, the lovely Brooke Adams remains a peripheral character throughout the film, with very few lines given to her.

Luke Halpin's character is also not much of a hero. Just think: in the beginning of SHOCK WAVES he's the only guy on deck at night. A gorgeous bikini-clad girl joins him and attempts to chat him up. So what does Luke do? His response to her advances is: 'I love the middle-of-the-night watch... it gives me a chance to be alone'. He might as well have just told her to beat it and try her luck with the Captain.

SHOCK WAVES shares with classic Italian zombie films such aspects as excellent location photography, eerie keyboard music and simple plot structure. The one important thing it has that no film by, say, Fulci could offer is on-set sound recording, which helps some of the very average performances fare better than they would have done otherwise.

Peter Cushing gives a wonderful performance as the SS Commander, although his attempts at German accent aren't entirely successful.

A film that deserves to be seen again and again for its effective simplicity.