La diga - Der Damm des Teufels

Elena's aunt is dead and she left to her is house, located in Bosco Lais, a little village (50 habitant s) lost in the middle of the South Switzerland's Alps. With her daughter Giorgia, aged of nine, she goes back to the village that her parents left when she was a newborn baby. However, the habitants of Bosco Lais do not seem to be friendly with them, only Clara (a supposed Witch) and Gabriele are Kind. Gabriele is the keeper of the Dam (la Diga) of Bosco Lais, a giant wall high 100 meters. Suddenly strange facts happened in the village: two old men are find dead, The Stranger came back after 50 years and is still young as before, Giorgia speak about a girl who live in the abandoned house…who is Marina and why everybody is so scared from Giorgia and Elena? A secret, a pact with the Devil, the ghost of a young girl, a cold climate and a gigantic dam who keep a secret inside. Theses are the element of this TV movie. Maybe a remake with a darker side and more suspense scenes it can be a success in theaters. Is not because is shoot in Switzerland and not in Japan that a ghost story cannot be credible.

Americans believe they make best movies in the world. But I prefer English or Czech comedies, French dramas or coming-to-age movies, Swedish family movies or social dramas, English crime movies (in fact even more mini-serials like Frost, Poirot, Silent Witness etc)... But there is one genre that is typically American, and I don't see any nation that has any chance to ever reach them on the top. It is horror. No other nation can imagine and invent so many ways to hurt and kill, to frighten and torture another person, either in a superb high production, a real art movie or garbage that goes lower than anyone could believe it's possible. Their horrors are really the best, but it may be emphasized by the fact that they show us horrors in reality - horror in Vietnam, horror in Hiroshima, horror in Iraq, even their own domestic horrors like glorifying death penalty, vigilantes, weapons... It makes us believe their horrors, they know what they're talking about! But now and then some non-Americans try to benefit from the popularity of the genre. Swedish "Det okanda", Japanese "Ringu", Croatian "Izbavitelj", Spanish "Dia de la bestia", Serbian "Leptirica", French "Le Pacte des loups", Danish "Riget", not to mention English haunted castles... Most of these countries made just one or a few movies that, though interesting and quality equal to better American horrors, couldn't establish genre in their national cinematographies. Now Swiss movie makers decided to join them.

Though movie doesn't have typical horror story line like "Det okanda", doesn't build frightening atmosphere like "Leptirica" or send messages like "Izbavitelj", "La diga" is worth watching even if you are not a horror fan. In fact, modern horror lovers will be disappointed, they will feel cheated, missing dead massacred bodies and gallons of ketchup. But those genre fans who grew up and fell in love with horrors before Jason and Freddie might find a movie that is hard to believe it was made in 21st century. Somewhere between "Omen" and "Changelling" in idea, mood and style. A story (that could be developed in a masterpiece if handled by Hitchcock or Cukor) ends too soon, authors used less than half of the potentials that open in first quarter of the movie. We can guess the secret too soon, it is revealed too soon, and the final part of movie is too long without the real climax a horror is expected to have. The actors didn't help much: Giorgia Senesi as dr Elena acts like Christine Lahti, but Chicago Hope is not a horror. I can imagine almost anyone to be better than Stefano Fiorentino as Gabriele who was a main male character, but had little to do with the horror part of story (mistake in screenplay!) and rather boring in romantic part. Margareta von Krauss is also retiring but unlike Fiorentino it fits in Clara's character making it very convincing. Pier Paolo Caponi as the major Pipo and some of supporting actors gave us better impression building tension that we need in horror. Some scenes (like Elena diving looking for her daughter, afraid she had drowned) were supposed to be dramatic or scary, but they seem if they were misplaced from another movie. "La diga" builds its mood (and it is the most worth thing it offers us) by small things, details, short talks, pictures. It is not a great movie, but we must thank the authors for their trying to resurrect a sub-genre that's been buried a few decades ago.