A tragicomic murder mystery set in Sicily with a stellar cast - Volante, Irene Papas and Gabriele Ferzetti.
A womanizing pharmacist receives a death threat in a letter full of alphabets cut out from a newspaper. Soon, the pharmacist and a professor friend are murdered while on a hunting trip. The brothers of one of the pharmacist's lovers is blamed for what everyone believes to be a honor killing.
But their friend, a bumbling leftist professor (played by Volante) thinks there is more to the murders and embarks on an investigation. He becomes suspicious because the letter contained alphabets cut out of an obscure and little read catholic newspaper that the illiterate peasant brothers of the girl could not have subscribed to. After he embarks on his own investigation, the leftist professor falls in love with the beautiful femme fatale Irene Pappas who plays the wife of the murdered professor.
The guilty parties are revealed at the beginning of the film itself but Volante's character seems to be completely oblivious. I heard a podcast which suggests that the film is critical of the gullibility and intellectual posturing of the Italian left. Volante's character is representative of the left - he is the only person who does not seem to know what is going on in a society that seems to be complicit in the murders.
The film is nice to look at. The heat and dust of Sicily really comes through in the visuals.
A great Luis Bacalov score is used to great effect especially during the aerial shots of Sicily. It is a melancholic tune but there are playful versions of the score too.
The appreciation of a film like this requires some understanding of the political context about which I was completely oblivious. It is not a Hitchcockian murder mystery if that is what you're looking for. I watched it because I am a fan of Volante and Petri.
(7/10)
A womanizing pharmacist receives a death threat in a letter full of alphabets cut out from a newspaper. Soon, the pharmacist and a professor friend are murdered while on a hunting trip. The brothers of one of the pharmacist's lovers is blamed for what everyone believes to be a honor killing.
But their friend, a bumbling leftist professor (played by Volante) thinks there is more to the murders and embarks on an investigation. He becomes suspicious because the letter contained alphabets cut out of an obscure and little read catholic newspaper that the illiterate peasant brothers of the girl could not have subscribed to. After he embarks on his own investigation, the leftist professor falls in love with the beautiful femme fatale Irene Pappas who plays the wife of the murdered professor.
The guilty parties are revealed at the beginning of the film itself but Volante's character seems to be completely oblivious. I heard a podcast which suggests that the film is critical of the gullibility and intellectual posturing of the Italian left. Volante's character is representative of the left - he is the only person who does not seem to know what is going on in a society that seems to be complicit in the murders.
The film is nice to look at. The heat and dust of Sicily really comes through in the visuals.
A great Luis Bacalov score is used to great effect especially during the aerial shots of Sicily. It is a melancholic tune but there are playful versions of the score too.
The appreciation of a film like this requires some understanding of the political context about which I was completely oblivious. It is not a Hitchcockian murder mystery if that is what you're looking for. I watched it because I am a fan of Volante and Petri.
(7/10)