Il nido

"The Nest", a sophisticated combination of horror/psycho drama by Italian director Roberto De Feo (awards for short films "Child K" and "Ice Scream") was presented at the 72nd Locarno film festival. This film is by no means a simple jump-scare distraction; it is incisive and distressing and begs contemplation. De Feo and director of photography Emanuel Pasquet work with dark, merciless elegance to exhault a powerful cast (Francesca Cavallin, Ginevra Francesconi, Justin Korovkin, Maurizio Lombardi) and the desolate beauty of the location. Tension and anxiety are deftly accumulated to depict the tragedy of vulnerability deformed into paranoia that proliferates through annihilating forms of power. The struggle ensues when vital forces attempt to protect innocence and the need to love and give courage to live in the unimagined truth.

I do not understand the high ratings regarding this movie; I'm truly at a loss.

People want to call this movie an aesthetically, beautiful, dark and intelligent, slow burn, when in reality it's simply long, boring, and wasteful.

There is so much of nothing going on for an hour and a half, no explanation as to the motives of the psychotic mother, the brain numbing pace, the child who is so micromanaged you began to wonder if he's truly brainwashed, or just stupidly compliant.

The scenes are so long and drawn out without any cohesive understanding as to what prior scenes have to do with what is currently happening.

Just gloom, doom, an overly dominant mother, the other psychotic character, the doctor, and household staff who wander around, terrified, of who knows what.

And, that ending. Really? Surely the producers could have given better subtle cues within the movie, so when the end comes you're prepared for it all to make sense. No. You're just left scratching your head going, huh? With all that said, after the big reveal at the end, (you still hate the mother) you'd think the mother would've wanted that kid to walk... but, you have to watch it to understand what I'm saying; or just watch 30 minutes then fast forward to the end, and ask yourself it it was worth fast forwarding, or sitting through all the drivel.

Let's be clear: horror is a genre that in Italy has been forgotten for about 20-25 years. After ancient glories and masterpieces signed by worldwide-acclaimed masters such as Argento, Fulci, Avati and Bava, horror cinema seems to have totally disappeared from national screens.

Roberto De Feo's "The Nest" is the breath of rebirth and resurrection of a long forgotten genre. The Nest is a horror that does not point to fear or disgust with particular visual artifices, but adheres to a more suspended, obscure and implicit line like Robert Eggers' "The Witch". Except for two or three visually more decisive and explicit sequences (placed however in a timely manner and not inopportune) it is a film that is based on dark atmospheres, on a sense of anguish and on a feeling that something strange is about to occur. It is a horror that also presents very delicate sequences, not trivial and well cohesive with the rest of the work. A fairly predictable end, however, if one takes into account the clues given here and there in the film and the narrative evolution of the story. An ending that presents nothing innovative, but well cohesive with the premise built by the film.

On a technical level, it presents a really beautiful and extremely accurate photography, moreover being a horror, and an Italian horror. From the directorial style it would be very plausible to believe that it is an Anglo-Saxon or American production. De Feo's direction is obscure, punctual, precise, elegant, enveloping but also sufficiently detached. Actorial evidence is positive on the whole, except for some high and low of some actors.

The Nest could be the rebirth of a new wave of Italian horror, and I sincerely hope that it is not a beacon of darkness destined, inexorably, to go out to make a long-forgotten genre return to oblivion.

7.5/10

I love that bourgeois decadent aesthetic as much as everyone else but this movie is too damn slow.

Literally nothing happens for 2/3 of the movie and the final twist doesn't really make up for it. The idea should have been explored a lot more

It is a pleasure to see films of this genre in the Italian panorama. The Nest is directed by Roberto De Feo, here at his first rehearsal as a director. In some places we see that this is his debut film but otherwise he has an excellent staging where the jumpscares are not the tension but the gothic atmospheres and the fact that there is a mystery behind the whole. Excellent the cast, chosen with great care and above all excellent the ending that initially may leave you perplexed but, observing the film, the dialogues and certain enigmatic scenes, we can understand that that ending was well studied. Recommended!