A Estratégia da Aranha

La Strategia del ragno is a beautifully shot, superbly acted movie with a lot of twists. At fist glance the story depicts a man, Athos Jr, who has to solve the murder on his father, Athos Sr. This is asked of him by his father's mistress. Later it becomes clear that that story is the strategy of the mistress to get him to replace his father (the two are identical). The third story that runs through the movie is why Athos Sr was in fact killed. It seems he's a traitor, but it's my guess that he staged his own death from the beginning (including his treason), without his friends knowing. The only one who finds out the whole truth is Athos Jr. The way these stories are told and how they interact is magnificent. There's nothing in the movie that shouldn't be there. Don't try to understand my very short summary, just watch the movie. The Last Emperor is not Bertolucci's best, although I like that one, too. This movie should be in the top of the top 250.

After having searched high & low for this ridiculously hard to find film by Bernardo Bertolucci, I finally got a watchable VHS print recently (thanx, Scott). It has been praised by many a critic & film scholar, and deservedly so. Leonard Maltin may not know much, but he was right on the money when he said that this film contains some of the most staggeringly beautiful cinematography ever put on screen. If only somebody would get this on a proper DVD (Criterion, if you're not too busy considering another re-release of The Rock...). The story is, on the surface, a sort of 'search for the truth' mystery/quest that quickly turns into a complex examination of 'the nature of truth'. The pace is slow, and there isn't much in the way of action, mostly just dialog scenes and gorgeous location shots. But I for one was totally engrossed (my wife seemed to dig it as well). Speaking of pace, this struck me as being quite Tarkovsky-esquire a film (barring a few odd cutaway shots), especially with that last scene that puts the whole film into a different spin. Fascinating, heady stuff, but not for all tastes and will be rewarding more to those who are patient and attentive.

Somehow I always thought this was Bertolucci's first film. It isn't. But it looks like it. Here's a director with a huge potential, a cinematographer who'll soon be one of the greatest, but they still have a long way to go. We were young and Bertolucci was very left-wing so it was de rigueur to find this great, but in fact it was boring. The plot meanders on, the acting is wooden, and in the end you don't know if there was a story there at all. Bertolucci has become an icon, maybe more because of the scandals adhering to his films than of the intrinsic worth of his cinematographic output (in contrast to for instance Ettore Scola). No scandalous scenes in this one though, just plain pretension and showing off.

Made the same year as Bertolucci's better known 'The Conformist', this look at the legacy of fascism in a small Italian town certainly has many strong points. Beautifully shot, with some interesting plot twists, and subtly surreal touches it's always interesting.

A son returns to a town where his father – an anti-fascist fighter in the years of Mussolini – was murdered by person(s) unknown, and has been made into a martyr and a hero by the locals. The son meets those who knew his father, and as he tries to discover the truth about what happened in the past, the reality gets more and more complex.

A touch of the conventional thriller runs through this in a good way, keeping the story focused, even when the film-making techniques are a little more obscure or baroque.

Only the slightly flat acting, which feels a bit phony and distancing, keep this from seeming more like a full-on masterpiece. It's as if Bertolucci wanted to engage only our heads, when nothing would have been lost by pulling in our hearts as well - something I think he succeeded with in "The Conformist"

That said, given that many see this as Bertolucci's best film, I'll watch it again.

It's definitely true this movie is not just for everyone and you also really need to be in the mood for it to watch it. It's the more slower type of movie, that besides doesn't lay out everything for you. Sometimes you have to fill in the blanks and interpret certain sequences for yourself in order to keep following it and understand things.

However when you really take the time to sit down for this movie, it's definitely more than worth it. It's a pretty fascinating watch, with a good concept and story in it.

It's great to watch how the movie its 'mystery' slowly gets unraveled and the puzzle gets put together by the main character Athos Magnani, who returns to the town where his father got killed. Not only does he try to find out who killed his father but perhaps more importantly, also the reason why.

It's great to watch the dynamics between him and the townsfolk. Some are helpful, others reluctant. It gives the movie a great atmosphere of tension and mystery as well. You never know who is telling the truth and what the motivations and reasons behind it all are.

There are also some good twists in the movie, especially toward the end. The movie its ending does not disappoint!

Deinetely worth checking out if this looks and sounds like your kind of thing!

8/10

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