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The heroine's aborted escape at the onset is painted in storm-soaked hues and set to Beethoven's thunder, it unmistakably goes into Suspiria. (A down-angle contrasts her yellow gown with the nocturnal-blue rocks along the river, portals open as she's returned home to reveal a greenish tinge from wall torches.) "Un timore assurdo" at the Renaissance castle, a sealed-off realm ruled by Gothic tyranny, "a father's duty" according to the Roman patrician (Gino Cervi). One son is dead, another (Anthony Steffen) carries on an illicit liaison with his stepmother (Micheline Presle), who can't quite bring herself to poison her husband's banquet. Into this wanders the steward (Fausto Tozzi) warned against getting involved by everybody, including the heiress (Mireille Granelli) he "rescued" in the opening scene. "I have no use for your heroism!" L'affaire Cenci, eruditely heightened, sumptuously corrosive, keyed to Riccardo Freda's transposition of Tintoretto horizontals to the CinemaScope widescreen. (Ornate tableaux are purposefully unsettled by subtle lens distortions during camera movements.) The patriarch insists he's no ogre, still he carries a whip as "interpreter" to address the daughter he plainly desires. His lethal fall from a balcony precipitates a visit from the judge (Frank Villard): "Nobles or peasants don't matter to me. I know only innocent or guilty." Out of the family nest and into the courtroom like out of the frying pan and into the fire for the titular maiden, a lateral move between oppressive institutions. "Una follia" splendidly sustained, cultivated with torture chamber confessions, brought to an operatic finish under charged skies at the chopping block. "It's fun breaking a strong woman." Fulci's version amplifies its visceral side, and Tavernier pays ample tribute in La passion Béatrice. With Claudine Dupuis, Emilio Petacci, Guido Barbarisi, and Vittorio Vaser.
--- Fernando F. Croce |