Interrabang

Italian Gialli from the late 1960s differed in a number of ways from those made in the wake of Dario Argento's BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE. Before gore and set-piece slaying, gialli like Umberto Lenzi's ORGASMO and Lucio Fulci's ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER were bloodless, psychological murder mysteries that relied on plot twists, sexual situations, and irony for their thrills and INTERRABANG is more of the same with director Giuliano Biagetti making the most of an extremely low budget, a trio of beautiful European starlets, and an enigmatic premise. The interrabang is non-standard English punctuation (a combination question mark and exclamation point) that never caught on and was probably the equivalent of today's WTF. That's what viewers will wonder when Fabrizio, a hip fashion photographer, sails to a secluded island with his wife, Anna (Beba Loncar), his model/girlfriend, Margarita (Shoshana Cohen), and his nubile sister-in-law, Valeria (Haydee Politoff) for a photo shoot but bails out to get help when their boat has engine trouble -knowing an escaped convict is in the vicinity. The bored babes, left to their own devices, soon strike up an easy acquaintance with Marco, a vacationing writer who first intrigues then seemingly seduces them one by one. Like most Gialli, the title is explained during the course of the film: the interrabang symbol is a gold-plated pendant said to represent doubt and uncertainty in the modern world and there's more than enough of that to go around. Motivation becomes muddled as heiress Anna professes to love her husband despite the infidelities and character flaws while her sister Valeria hates her for keeping too tight a control on the family fortune -and nymphomaniac Margarita doesn't seem to care about anything. Is Marco the escaped convict? Is he a homicidal maniac? Why does Valeria keep quiet when she finds a dead policeman? Margarita also stumbles upon the corpse just before it disappears and the mystery deepens...

INTERRABANG seems to acknowledge its genre when one character, reading a book, is asked if it's a "giallo" and the murder plot, if not examined too closely, eventually comes together in the end with one surprise revelation after another. Like the killer's comeuppance, the film is silly but satisfying and the tale manages to hold the interest despite being set entirely on a small boat and rocky shoreline. Giallo geeks should have a fairly good time but some are bound to be disappointed by the lack of violence and abundance of bathing suits.

This is the kind of late sixties film featuring jaded women, sick of free loving but not sick of talking crap, looking for fresh thrills on a yacht with a similarly free living photographer/playboy type. What's a guy to do when the yacht breaks down and you need to go to Kwik Fit to pick up another? Why, just leave them babes to sunbathe on a remote island - that's what!

These babes consists of bored looking, miniscule bikini clad Valeria, microscopic bikini wearing nympho Margherita, and slightly bigger beach wear wearing Anna. Each woman reacts differently to the presence of sexy possible poet but also possibly an escaped murderer, Marco. When I say 'react'. I mean, 'barely react at all and shed clothes'.

The characters in this film actually remind me of the burned out rich folk of Bret Easton Ellis' books, except without the graphic sex and violence (there's neither in this film by the way). Even when Valeria finds the dead body of a guy, she simply just walks away and doesn't mention it to anyone.

Without fannying about too much and beating around the bush, Interrabang is a borderline arty giallo where not much happens at all, has a lot of jibber jabber (including even referencing Giallo books!), but then again looks really beautiful, has Euro babes lounging about, and a nice score.

The ending made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever and every other review explains what an Interrabang is, so I'm outta here.

Fifteen years after he had been a protégé of Roberto Rossellini in 1953, Italian director Giuliano Biagetti somewhere stumbled across the term "Interrabang" (now consult your dictionary, per favore) and decided to knit the ultimate meta-thriller around it. The whole intertextual stupor begins with pseudo-existentialist banter between photographer Fabrizio and three trendy dolls (among them Haydee Politoff, who had played the lead role in the first installment of Rohmer's contes moraux, La collectionneuse, two years before) while heading to a rocky island for a fashion shooting, where a blue-eyed poet/ psycho is already waiting for the bikini bunch. The ensuing beach party is refined with Fitzgerald quotes, Daft One Dialogue ("How did you kill your woman?" "I didn't kill her. She was already dead for me."), the per se not-too-bad theme by Berto Pisano varied and overused to the retchy max, plus three dozen ultra-fishy "twists" buzzing off to Spasticland, breakneck-style. When Roberto Rossellini met Biagetti after the premiere, he put an arm around his old colleague's shoulders and told him a little secret about thrillers and postmodernist stunts, though Biagetti didn't listen because he was busy shaking hands with some stunning brunette in those very seconds. "It's no use breaking the rules, amico mio", Rossellini said, "if you don't even know 'em."

Two clear warnings here that this is not going to be the most straightforward of movies. One, that 1969 crazy film release year and two, the title. More correctly 'interrobang', I believe was a punctuation mark invented in 1962 to combine the exclamation and question mark, in order to indicate a rhetorical question with simultaneous surprise. this never really caught on and has probably has maybe been replaced with WTF?! Anyway most appropriate for this film with three bikini clad lovelies stuck on a rocky isle with either a poet or an escaped convict, or maybe even both. the guy who was with the girls has gone to get a replacement part for the boat and the girls enjoy the new guy in his absence. All, of course, is not quite what it seems and by the end a number of swift surprises and revelations leave us reeling. Actually, not a lot of action here but pleasant enough with some great beachwear and mysterious going on.

A photographer named Fabrizio and three women including his wife Anna,her sister Valerie and Fabrizio's model/lover Margarita anchor their yacht next to a small,deserted island for a photo shoot.Due to engine problem Fabrizio leaves his boat to bring help.Three women decide to spend their time on sunny and rocky island.Turns out there is a dangerous criminal on the island who may be a homicidal maniac.Marco seduces each of woman and plans to murder Margarita and Anna.Beautifully shot and dreamy giallo with lovely score by Berto Pisano,which was later used in Mario Landi's "Giallo a Venezia"(1979).Plenty of surprising twists and turns plus a little bit of subtle nudity provided by Shoshana Cohen.If you liked "Orgasmo" or "Island of Death" give "Interrabang" a look.7 disappearing bodies out of 10.