This looks like it might have been Mario Ciaino's last film before he went off to work in television, and I'm not going to lie to you - it's a very slow moving drama with a light horror tinge.
Rather a lot of the film involves Lou Castel standing around, staring at things and being sad and if he's not standing around being sad, lead character Monica is pretty much doing the same. There's a cat involved too, and it likes to stare at people.
The barely there story starts with Lou Castel wandering around some Italian town, trying to work up the courage to kill himself. Why he's doing this isn't immediately apparent, but we do know it's got something to do with a girl called Monica. This Monica in question, via flashback, is pretty enigmatic herself, as we see her move into a strange old attic room that used to be occupied by an even stranger old man...
Monica also gets to meet Castel and the two of them eventually hit it off, but Monica's weird past (possibly literally) comes back to haunt her, and various characters are sent off on miserable trajectories before the downbeat ending to an already pretty downbeat film.
Strange one, this. Almost nothing happens for its entire running time, but some of the imagery and especially the soundtrack is good. There's a tarot motive throughout the film and various elements that are left for the viewer to figure out (like the little girl also called Monica). Not that I figured out any of it.
Lou Castel seems to revel in these kind of films for some reason. His weird dancing in the disco did raise a chuckle.
