Dublin doesn't look this yellow in real lifeI love giallo movies.
Gialli, to give you a drastically oversimplified description, were thrillers that were made in Italy predominantly in the 70s and were marked by stylish direction, shamelessly exploitative sexual content, gruesome violence and some crazy plot twists, among many other things. The most famous (among the public at least) contributor to the genre was probably Dario Argento but many, many directors plied their trade in the genre and pretty much anyone who's anyone in the world of cult Italian cinema of the 1970s dabbled in giallo material at one time or another. There are a number of blogs out there who cover them in depth, if all this chat has given you an appetite for more.
So, yes, I love gialli. I also happen to love Dublin, as regular readers will know, so when I discovered that there was a giallo made in Dublin I was rather excited. When I then discovered that said film had just been released on DVD I practically soiled myself with excitement.
Okay, so neither the film nor the DVD presentation of it are exactly top of the giallo class, but I was delighted to see it all the same.
Directed by Riccardo Freda, the film centres around a murder case being investigated by an Irish policeman played by Italian cult movie veteran Luigi Pistilli. Just when you thought you were used to the bad dubbing in these films, you get Luigi Pistilli dubbed with the voice of an Irishman. Priceless.
The case is made more complicated by a number of factors, such as Pistilli being a washed-up has-been, the murder being linked to a high-powered ambassador and the fact that, like all good giallo movies, everyone in the film appears to be really suspicious.
The DVD itself is not great. The picture quality is watchable but varies from okay to below average, in some places appearing to be taken from either a video copy or a really bad print. Oversaturated colours and soft, murky shadows are the order of the day. The sound is equally patchy, but overall the presentation is acceptable for a film of such rarity and it is at least in anamorphic widescreen.
As for the film... well, it's certainly not a great example of the genre. Things look hopeful when, just five minutes in, a murder occurs involving acid in the face followed by a graphic throat-slashing. Incidentally, if this sort of thing sounds repulsive to you, you probably don't want to watch any more gialli.
But back to the film. That opening murder gets our hopes up but from then on in, highlights are too thinly spread out over the film and all too often the most horrific stuff happens off screen - not what we giallo fans pay our money for! That said, there's still other tasteless stand-out scenes, not least of which is the scene in which a young school girl is graphically assaulted. Granted, the girl was probably an adult playing well below her age, but it's still a perfect example of the sleazy anything-goes attitude that makes gialli so engrossing/gobsmacking.
The conclusion, when it comes, is somewhat typical of giallo material in that it is totally and utterly barmy, although you could just about argue that the clues were all there if you looked really, really hard.
Stelvio Cipriani supplies a decent score, Pistilli is always fun to watch and there's some great old footage of 1970s Dublin (if, like me, you like that sort of stuff) but overall it's a weaker effort with the occasional memorable moment.
Gialli, to give you a drastically oversimplified description, were thrillers that were made in Italy predominantly in the 70s and were marked by stylish direction, shamelessly exploitative sexual content, gruesome violence and some crazy plot twists, among many other things. The most famous (among the public at least) contributor to the genre was probably Dario Argento but many, many directors plied their trade in the genre and pretty much anyone who's anyone in the world of cult Italian cinema of the 1970s dabbled in giallo material at one time or another. There are a number of blogs out there who cover them in depth, if all this chat has given you an appetite for more.
So, yes, I love gialli. I also happen to love Dublin, as regular readers will know, so when I discovered that there was a giallo made in Dublin I was rather excited. When I then discovered that said film had just been released on DVD I practically soiled myself with excitement.
Okay, so neither the film nor the DVD presentation of it are exactly top of the giallo class, but I was delighted to see it all the same.
Directed by Riccardo Freda, the film centres around a murder case being investigated by an Irish policeman played by Italian cult movie veteran Luigi Pistilli. Just when you thought you were used to the bad dubbing in these films, you get Luigi Pistilli dubbed with the voice of an Irishman. Priceless.
The case is made more complicated by a number of factors, such as Pistilli being a washed-up has-been, the murder being linked to a high-powered ambassador and the fact that, like all good giallo movies, everyone in the film appears to be really suspicious.
The DVD itself is not great. The picture quality is watchable but varies from okay to below average, in some places appearing to be taken from either a video copy or a really bad print. Oversaturated colours and soft, murky shadows are the order of the day. The sound is equally patchy, but overall the presentation is acceptable for a film of such rarity and it is at least in anamorphic widescreen.
As for the film... well, it's certainly not a great example of the genre. Things look hopeful when, just five minutes in, a murder occurs involving acid in the face followed by a graphic throat-slashing. Incidentally, if this sort of thing sounds repulsive to you, you probably don't want to watch any more gialli.
But back to the film. That opening murder gets our hopes up but from then on in, highlights are too thinly spread out over the film and all too often the most horrific stuff happens off screen - not what we giallo fans pay our money for! That said, there's still other tasteless stand-out scenes, not least of which is the scene in which a young school girl is graphically assaulted. Granted, the girl was probably an adult playing well below her age, but it's still a perfect example of the sleazy anything-goes attitude that makes gialli so engrossing/gobsmacking.
The conclusion, when it comes, is somewhat typical of giallo material in that it is totally and utterly barmy, although you could just about argue that the clues were all there if you looked really, really hard.
Stelvio Cipriani supplies a decent score, Pistilli is always fun to watch and there's some great old footage of 1970s Dublin (if, like me, you like that sort of stuff) but overall it's a weaker effort with the occasional memorable moment.
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