Enquête sur un citoyen au-dessus de tout soupçon

This 1970s Italian political drama opens with a compelling murder live show, a dapper man, Volonté (the head of homicide squad) artfully kills his erotic mistress (Bolken) with a sharp blade, and what's befuddling the viewers is after that, Volonté intentionally leaves many traces which could be implicated to him at the scene of the crime, all the more a face-to-face encounter with a witness when he leaves the building. Naturally, one has to divine his motivation of his deviant contrivances, but the film doesn't opt to give a straightforward answer to the illogicality, instead it unwinds itself into a sociological tirade aiming at the blazon compliance of the ruling power echelon, Volonté has been promoted to a more authoritarian post, politics-oriented, and the cover-up process degrades the whole investigation into a farce, lushly recorded by the agile camera.

Arguably, this is Elio Petri's most famous film, an Oscar's BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM crowner, and won him 2 awards in CANNES that year, Petri may not occupy an international cachet so high as his Italian peers, but the film can potently justify his talent, it is an authentic gas, wonderfully designed camera-work with a great architectonic predilection, astute sense of unpicking the tacit phone-interception dirty business, a twitchy sensibility towards the rotten authorities, and upbraids an undeniable self-awareness of being politically-biased.

Volonté is tailor-made for the leading role, a typical male chauvinist, over-cocksure by appearance while underneath he is a man haunted by his impotence and jealousy (Bolken has mentioned a few times he is only a child which effectively irritates him), although ambiguous about the raison d'être of his act, Volonté is confident, menacing and impressive out of his common Spaghetti image. Bolken is billed as the co-lead, but mostly appears in flashback and the film has curtailed her character to a sexy trophy, a power-worshipper and a dispensable pawn whose stupidity overshadows her own demise, nevertheless she is a stunner in all her shots. The standout of the all-male supporting cast is Salvo Randone as an innocent plumber, who caves in poignantly in front of power, a bona-fide scene stealer.

Last but not the least is Ennio Morricone's score, the repeated motif has a synthesized rhythm, catchy and indelible, throughout the film, it renders the film a touch of ridicule and never leave any chance for the audiences to be bored by the doctrinal tone the film unintentionally betrays.

A chief of detectives (Gian Maria Volontè), homicide section, kills his mistress (Florinda Bolkan) and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.

I absolutely loved this film. It is part crime thriller, part detective story, and a bit of political corruption. Being Italian and having an Italian sensibility, it reminded me more than a little bit of the giallo film genre. But yet, it was distinct. The giallo is in some ways the precursor to the slasher, and this was not that sort of film -- not gory and the killer is not a masked and gloved man.

What really stands out is the score from Ennio Morricone. He has made many scores over the years and without exception they have been quite good. Is he the best composer of the 20th century? Maybe. And I would daresay this is among his very best, easily in the top three. The score alone makes the film worth watching.

Some comments in light of previous descriptions of the movie.

This movie is definitively about state violence. Even if to a viewer that has no foreknowledge of the police state that was instituted in Italy (with the help of the CIA as the movie alludes to) in order to keep the Communist Party from taking power (the PCI had the biggest following of any parties at that time), the fact remains that the movie is not much more surreal than the socio-political reality facing the film-maker.

Murders and "suicides" (while in police custody) of left-wing political activists and of anarchists are a fact that Elio Petri was painfully aware of. He made a documentary called "Streghi dello stato" "witches of the state" where Jean Maria Volonte and others expose such "suicides". Elio Petri was politically aware and through out his work there is criticism of the right wing of Italian politics (see TODO MORO).

I think that the movie is most powerful once you are aware of the fact that you can be victimized at the hands of an institution, esp. at the hands of an institution that exists only to maintain political order. Once the politicization of the priorities of those institutions that have the legitimate use of violence occurs, than meaningless violence towards the innocent will be allowed if punishing it would impair the political functions of the state machinery. Flora Balkan is perhaps a symbol for the masses, their love of violence and power, their love for the undoing of their freedoms.

A very fine movie that requires some effort, but that is always actual - thanks to an interesting narration of human nature. The movie does have it's flaws and i the action is not as invigorated as one expects it to be after the first 15 minutes, neither is the camera work at the level it has to be for this movie to be the greatest ever but it is still a hell of a great movie.

Whether or not you agree with this movie's negative portrayal of state violence and of that primal attraction that violence has (explored in a marvelously Mediterranean style in this movie) for so many could make the difference in how much you are puzzled by the movie. If you see it a a satire of power and violence - it might work.

The final scene in Elio Petri's 1970 Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion concludes with a quote from Kafka's The Trial: "Whatever he may seem to us, he is yet a servant of the Law; that is, he belongs to the Law and as such is set beyond human judgment." What Petri has left out from this excerpt is also that "to doubt his integrity is to doubt the Law itself". The "he" in question here is the man of the Law – the police inspector – played brilliantly, hair slicked back et al, by Gian Maria Volontè. Without any scruples, we see the Inspector coldly cut his mistress's throat with a razor between the sheets in a kinky role-playing romp, sans scruples, only to prove to himself if he is, as he believes, a citizen above suspicion and beyond the Law which he so firmly adheres to.

This complex film is a cinematic gem thanks to its multifarious tropes – at times absurd black comedy, at times vitriolic political satire, at times psychological study into sexual fetishism and power. Of course, all of these themes intermingle so effortlessly that you can't help but be taken aback by the richness of Petri's byzantine vision. The left-leaning director here depicts the autocratic terror that overtook Italy in the late 60s, an overture to the tense, decade-long period known as the "years of lead" in Italian politics – a time of fascist repression and a struggle between the equally-as-extreme left and right of center parties.

Beyond its political overtones (which are universal yet now paradoxically outdated, as we see rebellious students waving their little red Maoist books around to anger the "fascist pigs" in the police force), Investigation plays its strongest and most universal hand in its view of authority, and specifically, those that wield an ungodly amount of it. The Inspector, in a snug, black suit, commands and degrades his subordinates, yet in the way a responsible teacher would reprimand a naughty student. That is, he believes his own righteousness and position, and here, once he commits the murder of Augusta Terzi (the stunning Florinda Bolkan), he leaves the Law to spin its wheels of Justice, having full confidence in the organ of power that commands him. As the Inspector sits in the office of his boss, the Commissioner (a sleazy Gianni Santuccio), he trembles like a child, waiting for approval and acceptance. After the latter admits to having an affair with the murdered victim, the unperturbed Commissioner asks him amidst a smoke-filled smirk, holding a cigar in his fat fingers, "So, was she, you know? Any good?" Here we can make the link between power and sexual impotence, as the simple reason the Inspector kills his lover is because she has brought to light his personal inadequacies as a man. An individual who holds such dominance over others, who commands such authority, is an addictive aphrodisiac for Bolkan's underwear-hating heroine, but after a while, she sees her Inspector is nothing more than a capricious child obsessed and deceived with a position of power that holds no integrity and no truth. For her, his sexual appeal has vanished, the organ of dominance has grown limp, as the incongruity between the Inspector's projected image and his actual self begins to grow. She hates his little black socks, his dull black suit, and his overall bureaucratic appearance. In a few great satirical moments, we see the impressionable Inspector strolling the streets in a trendy new khaki suit, a purple silk ascot, fashionable sunglasses – a caricature of Italian culture to the fullest.

So what prompts Volontè's Inspector to make his final decision? Is he a stern follower of the Law who wants to test it and prove himself superior to his inept colleagues; a sadistic neofascist bureaucrat who lives for control and subjugation of others; an infantile with a bruised ego thanks to an untamable feminine force? Are we, as viewers, not to question his actions, but simply to accept them as necessary because he's "a man of the Law", superior to us, despite his faults, as Kafka leads us to believe…or is that just Petri's tongue-in-cheek humor getting the best of us? That's the fun of this great film, and the kookiness of Ennio Morricone's twangy score adds to the comical effect of a dark and witty étude into power, sex, and politics.

I first saw this movie in December 1969 in New York. Apparently it did not open in LA before the year ended and, as a consequence, won best foreign film for 1970 (Z won for 1969). In the 1990's sometime IFC aired the film and I was lucky enough to tape it and then transfer it to DVD.

During the years following seeing the film, I would recommend the film to all my friends. What struck me when I had the chance to view it again was how well I had remembered the movie, every scene. Few, if any, movies ever made such a lasting impression from my first viewing and it still has that effect.

Besides the great script and direction, what made it complete was one of the finest performances by an actor I've ever seen. It is up there with the greatest work of such as Olivier, O'Toole, Depardieu and Mastroianni, to name a few whose work was staggering.

As to its unavailability, maybe someone should rattle IFC's cage asking them to air it again or maybe get TCM to air it.