Le Domaine

"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.

The cinematography is good. The characters are emotional. It's very difficult to expect anyone to understand what they have without knowing what its like to have none of it. There are several threads of thought within the film. There is the evil that inhabits those with too much control. There is the desperation that comes with keeping dark secrets. Love is easily distorted when one tells themselves that everything they so is for others. People only ever do what they believe, so what they want. There is a man in this film that enjoys being horrible. He feels he can justify himself by saying it is someone else making the decisions. No one can be like he is without being truly depraved deep inside himself. A sub-theme is the significance of music genres. Music is best enjoyed when all the genres are understood- not just one. Possibly the film can be summarized by saying happiness is best enjoyed while knowing what you do not want.

Absolutely the worst 2 hours of my life. Pathetic.

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!

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