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Not Pickpocket as perfume ad (American Gigolo), but Viaggio in Italia with fashion models. Venice, sumptuous and septic, a therapeutic holiday for alienated Brits (Natasha Richardson, Rupert Everett). "It's very easy to get lost." Canals and alleys, murkiness lit up by the blues of a mannequin display ("Like a space shuttle") and the reds of activist posters ("Colletivo Femminista Venezia"). In the maze is a bar owned by the stranger in Armani linen (Christopher Walken), a dapper reactionary with a practiced anecdote about Papa's mascara-dyed mustache. (The camera glides away during the monologue to explore the aquiline faces of this netherworld's clientele.) The gentleman's masochistic wife (Helen Mirren) completes the quartet, inviting the tourists to the palazzo and watching them sleep in the nude. "You both have such wonderful skin." Ian McEwan distilled by Harold Pinter, ponderous superficies glinted by Paul Schrader, quite the dry Euro-arthouse sendup. (Roeg and Resnais and Visconti are thrown into the stew, with a glassblower's equine figurine offered like a Cocteau aperçu.) Beauty and danger, repression and madness, ancient frescoes and modernist installations. The host waxes nostalgic for tempi fascisti and follows a punch to his guest's stomach with a wink, Walken luxuriates in the role with extraterrestrial courtliness. "I respect you as an Englishman. But not if you're a communist poof. You're not a poof, are you? It's the right word, no? Or is it fruit? Talking about fruit, it's time for coffee." The visitors appreciate the aphrodisiac effect the Venetian predators have on them, not so much the vampiric ritual it all leads up to. "I knew that fantasy was passing into reality. Have you ever experienced that? It's like stepping into a mirror." The closing gag is from Psycho, the police inspector anticipates the critical reception ("We don't get it"). Cinematography by Dante Spinotti.
--- Fernando F. Croce |