Italian

Torso

**Ah, 1970s Italian films. There’s really nothing like them. I’m not nearly well versed enough in cinema history to know what it was that fuelled the explosion of fabulous Italian cinema in the late 60s and 70s but I’m glad it happened. From Spaghetti Westerns to supernatural slashers, a number of my favourite films, directors and film scores come from the era.  **

More often than not, these films get unfairly dismissed or overlooked.  With large multi-lingual casts speaking whichever language came naturally to them and then being dubbed for release, cheap sets and often clumsy dialogue, a lot of modern film fans sadly mistake these for bad films. They’re not.  With the exception of a few well-known greats - like Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone - most of the star-players of Italian cinema seem to be restricted to only cult appreciation. It’s a shame because so many of these films are beautifully shot and scored, and ought to be better known.

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley

Cannibals!

Cannibals, cannibals, cannibals! A-biting and a-chomping! Snackin’ on Human flesh!

For all that we might weave outrageous fantasies of Vampires and Were-wolves, of Aliens and Ghouls, of the half-dead and the undead and all manner of imaginary beasties, there’s nothing quite as shocking as the atrocities and horrors enacted upon people by… Other People! From the Nazis to Human Centipedes, many of the most threatening films feature the cruelties of humans.

Bird with the Crystal Plumage

From one to the next!

Tonight’s film was Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L’uccello dalle Piume de Cristallo) which was another that I’d seen before but, once again, was none the worse for it.

My entry for this one will be much shorter. Mostly because I’m much more tired today, but partly also because the film is, in my eyes at least, somewhat less remarkable. It makes a fairly neat comparison against Opera though, mostly because nearly every flaw I found in Opera is corrected here.

What Have You Done To Solange? / Cosa avete fatto a Solange?

The Italian Giallo films are perhaps not best known for being the most sophisticated cinematic creations of all time. Characterised by murder, mystery and sex, they equate more or less with our idea of a thriller, pulp-fiction Euro-cine. But with more sex.

It came as a surprise then just how good What Have You Done To Solange? was. On paper, admittedly, it looks as smutty, crass and trashy as you could expect from a Giallo (or any low-budget offering from the trash-flick capital of Europe): it’s set in a Catholic girls school full of illicitly promiscuous teens, a teacher (the Italian professor, no less) is courting his pupils behind his wife’s back, girls are getting killed with knife-wounds in unpleasant places and an unknown girl -the Solange of the title- is the link…