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.

A young man named Athos Magnani (Giulio Brogi) arrives at the small Italian town of Tara. Magnani's aim is to discover who killed his father, a local hero and anti-fascist, decades earlier. The script makes many references to Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader of the 1930s.

An essentially political film, "The Spider's Stratagem" contains deep themes related to personal identity, the definition of heroes, as well as perceptions of, and the truth about, others. Events and people are not always what they seem to be. The thematic depth is enhanced by competent cinematography, with some clever compositional camera shots.

And yet, I found this film hard to like. There is an overall sense of gloom, with a drab landscape and bleak characters that seem more symbolic of ideas vis-à-vis real people with personal lives. Direction trends theatrical and stagy. And some plot elements seem either unnecessary or deliberately opaque.

Acting also seems stagy and contrived, which may have been the director's intent. Alida Valli's performance is terrible. I dislike the way she smiles at the most inappropriate times. Further, the viewer must endure periodic outbursts of grand opera.

I am thus ambivalent toward "The Spider's Stratagem". It has adequate thematic depth, for viewers wanting a thought-provoking film. But the slow-moving plot is something of a trial to sit through, with irksome characters and gloomy visuals. I found it not entertaining.

Maybe a second viewing, when I have more time to digest the film's political themes, will render an impression that is not so alien and forbidding.

"Capitalizing on the auditory accompaniment from Verdi's RIGOLETTO and AIDA, THE SPIDER'S STRATAGEM sustains Bertolucci's usual orotund flourishes (Ligabue's paintings in the opening credits, a metaphorical gaze into a male lion) with beguiling long takes and precipitate editing choices. If it is far less trenchant and intricate than THE CONFORMIST, that may partially be ascribed the thin material on offer, also, not helped by Brogi, albeit a fine, good-looking actor inhabiting Athos with piss and vinegar, who makes for a less compelling protagonist for audience to contemplate and engage than Trintignant in his most expressive inscrutability."

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.

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.