Le orme

A slow-moving film which retains a certain cult ; it seems it's all in a dream ,or a nightmare more like ; few special effects,no gore, but a great sense of mystery,with an open ending which will make all viewers interpreting the meaning of this bewildering story according to their own sensitivity .

With its deja vu feeling, its bizarre characters (Lila Kedrova) , its strange experiments on the moon , one can wonder whether the heroine is losing her mind, or is it a recurrent nightmare ? Its atmosphere sometimes recall "carnival of souls" ,probably the first important indie in the history of cinema .The beauty of Florinda Bolkan and the threatening face of Klaus Kinski add to the fascinating and deadly charm of this offbeat work.

This is actually a very good surreal mystery movie, despite the description that tries to sell it as a Sci-Fi movie. Balkan stars as a woman haunted by mysterious visions and lost memories that she is trying to piece together. She spends the majority of the movie trying to make sense of her visions. Very atmospheric and effective. It is true that Kinski does not appear very much in this film, but the staring actors are very good. There is only an English dubbed version available in the US, and the dubbing leaves something to be desired, but the actors do a very good job. The cinematography, by Academy Award winner Vittorio Storaro is excellent. An earlier Giallo by director Bazzoni, THE FIFTH CORD, is also excellent, and also lensed by Storarro.

Footprints is a very interesting movie that is somewhat difficult to categorize. "Psychological thriller" is the most appropriate description I can think of. The female protagonist, Alice Cespi, discovers that she doesn't remember anything of the last three days. The only clue she has is a torn photo of a hotel. She is also haunted by a recurring, very vivid, dream about a science fiction movie that she believes she saw many years ago. In her pursuit of the truth behind her amnesia she doesn't trust anyone, but little by little it becomes obvious that she has visited the town where the hotel is located before. This is an exciting flick whose main virtue is that it is virtually impossible to predict how the events will unfold, and particularly, how it will end. The unusual loneliness of the main character and the unreliability of everyone else ensure that the good old paranoid feeling is present throughout the film, whereas beautiful colors and some spectacularly filmed sequences make this a visually attractive movie as well. The important part of the one and only Nicoletta Elmi, everyone's all time favorite redheaded obnoxious child star of Italian horror, is an extra bonus.

Alice (Florinda Bolkan), a translator living in Italy, discovers that she has a memory loss and can't recall the last couple of days. She starts to follow a trace of memory fragments, which leads her to the small town of Garma. People in the town seem to recognize her and she's beginning to suspect that the re-occurring nightmares of astronauts conducting horrible experiments has something to do with her own amnesia.

The movie is interesting and the plot is good, but it's a bit to slow moving and arty for my taste. The plot takes some nice twists and it's really hard to figure out where it's heading. Florinda Bolkan is good in her role (but even better in "Flavia the Heretic") and it's always nice to see "star" child actor Nocoletta Elmi. Klaus Kinski's role is too small though. This is not a movie for the die-hard gore hound or exploitation addict, but still a very nice hour-and-a-half mystery.

Unable to cope with mounting pressures at work and haunted by visions of a lone astronaut abandoned on the surface of the moon, Alice travels to the exotic sea side town of Garma to get away from it all.

She encounters a number of people there who claim to know her from earlier as Nicole, even though she insists this is her first time there. Brazillian born Florinda Bolkan turns in a solid performance as the elusive Portugese translator caught in the grips of a fugue.

A strange but oddly compelling existential mystery about dual identities and self-fulfilling prophecies, Footprints on the moon is more reminiscent of art-house favorites such as Antonioni's L'aventura and Passenger and Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, than say other Mystery/Thriller Genre fare so popular at the time in Italy.

The story unfolds at a languorous pace and things get redundant after a while, but it does allow Cinematographer extraordinaire Vittorio Storaro to really explore the unique locations and dazzle with his wonderfully dexterous camera-work. He furthers the style he pioneered in The Conformist.

Also, watch out for Klaus Kinski in a small role as a sinister Space Commander on the lookout for guinea pigs to conduct his secret experiments for a shadowy Government agency. Yes, I'm talking about the same movie.