Notícias

Luchino Visconti’s handsome final feature adapts a classic Italian novel about an arrogant aristocrat whose selfish double-standard philosophy causes ruin and misery. The 19th century villas and ornate costumes dazzle, but the depressingly fated story will be tough going for sensitive audiences. This new disc encoding highlights the intoxicating atmosphere, and the intense performances of Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli and Jennifer O’Neill.

L’innocente

Blu-ray

Film Movement Classics

1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 129 112 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / 29.95

Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Rina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Didier Haudepin, Marie Dubois, Roberta Paladini, Claude Mann, Marc Porel.

Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Franco Mannino

Production Design: Mario Garbuglia

Costumes: Piero Tosi

Written by Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti from the novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio

Produced by Giovanni Bertolucci

Directed by Luchino Visconti

The availability of European art cinema became spotty in the 1970s,...

BERLIN -- Everybody says that Fred, an attractive but sober-minded young nurse, doesn't mind when patients die. "Don't believe everything you hear," she protests, because being close to the dying has only tightened her resolve to commit suicide.

In the nearby forest she puts a rifle to her chin, but when a noisy gaggle of kids on a school trip pass by and one of them starts screaming, she turns in anger and despair and shoots him. Almost inevitably, the wounded boy comes under her care at the hospital.

Writer and director Jeanne Waltz's intelligent examination of alienation, in which the contrite nurse finds a way to reach out to what proves a very troubled schoolboy, should find a welcome among audiences seeking insightful drama.

Isild Le Besco, as Fred, and Steven de Almeida as the boy, Marco, are convincing as rebellious souls who have each developed a carapace to hide their need for love.

Fred argues with her father and with her boyfriend, and has idle sex with random partners. She understands, however, the healing power of a nurse's hands, and at work her compassion flowers. Once a champion shot, she keeps her rifle in top condition even as she allows her life to become frayed at the edges.

Marco is a child of divorce, caught in the bitterness of his parents' separation and angry at life in general. Waiting for surgery on the knee that was smashed by Fred's bullet, he's a nightmare for the other nurses and only his assailant has the patience to deal with him.

Each recognizes in the other a need for consolation and the prickliness that results from feeling unwanted. Gradually, Fred drops hints that might lead the boy to figure out who had actually shot him, not knowing what his reaction will be. Waltz develops that tension with sharp editing that takes full advantage of the expressive range of her two leads.

Set in a modern Swiss town that has a clockwork feel and is made claustrophobic by the surrounding forest, the tale is one of grasping for redemption, and Waltz handles it with flare.

Parting Shot (Pas Douce)

Prince Film SA, Geneva; Bloody Mary Productions, Paris

Credits

Director and screenwriter: Jeanne Waltz

Producers: Didier Haudepin, Pierre-Alain Meier

Cinematographer: Helene Louvart

Production designer: Francoise Arnaud

Music: Cyril Ximenes

Costume designers: Catherine Schneider, Isabelle Blanc

Editor: Eric Renault

Cast:

Fred: Isild Le Besco

Marco: Steven de Almeida

Mother of Marco: Lio

Father of Marco: Yves Verhoeven

Andre: Christophe Sermet

Renate: Estelle Bealem

Father of Fred: Philippe Vuilleumier

Friend of father: Christian Sinniger

Wounded drunk: Bernard Nissille

Rita: Jocelyne Desverchere

Mister Vaucher: Remy Roubakha

Amorous orthopedist: Serge Onteniente

Jeremy: Maxime Kathari

Charge nurse: Catherine Epars

Commissar: Michel Raskine.

No MPAA rating. Running time 85 minutes.