Le séquestré

Kidnapping in Sardinia: Atmospheric kidnapping shocker with Franco Nero and Charlotte Rampling

The young foreign student Christina Fisher (Charlotte Rampling) is with her boyfriend Francesco Marras (Pierluigi Apra) for the first time on his home island of Sardinia. They want to go on vacation and visit Francesco's parents (Margarita Lozano and Ennio Balbo). Suddenly Francesco is kidnapped by bandits in front of Christina. She wants to inform the police immediately, but is dissuaded from doing so by Francesco's parents and his childhood friend Gavino (Franco Nero). The kidnappers want such a large ransom that Signore Marras is forced to sell a sought-after seaside property to real estate shark Osilio (Frank Wolff). In the end, maybe that's all it's about? When Christina finally informs the police, things come to a dramatic head. But Gavino also has a score to settle with the island's powerful...

Shot in the blazing Sardinian sun, this film by Gianfranco Mingozzi still makes you shiver. It was released in Italian cinemas in 1968 and is therefore a forerunner of the great wave of mafia films from 1972 onwards. It was not shown in West German cinemas until 1973. Atmospherically dense, the word mafia isn't mentioned once! The islanders seem to know exactly what to do in a disaster like this. They don't seem to know any different. Scary and fascinating!

In a supporting role is Steffen Zacharias (1927-1989), who was born in Hamburg to Greek parents and who would appear in a number of Cinecitta productions in the following years. For the two-time EUROPEAN FILM AWARD winner (Swimming Pool, 2003 / 45 Years, 2015) Charlotte Rampling (*1946) this film was one of her first leading roles.

Recommended!

This dullish thriller utilizes the same kidnapping theme that would dominate many Italian movies (and Italian life) through at least the 70s, although later treatments tended to be more in the realm of sensational action-packed crime thrillers. This movie doesn't seem certain how seriously to take itself-there's not much action, and the Sardinian atmosphere is vivid (at least photographically), but there's not enough insight into the politics or economics that would justify a relatively non-exploitative approach.

Franco Nero plays the son of a tightfisted local landowner; his friend, son of another wealthy local landowner, is the one who is kidnapped at the beginning of the film. It's Charlotte Rampling's POV we get during that key initial scene. Yet her vacationing-Brit-girl casual girlfriend of the kidnapped man turns out to be largely superfluous to the plot, making it seem as though her inclusion was really not much more than a commercial appeal to English-speaking audiences. (Rampling being Rampling, her character also comes off as extremely glamorous but a snippy brat, so we're not all that sorry she stays on the margins.)

There are echoes here of Bertolucci's much later "Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man," particularly in some later plot revelations. But in their different ways neither film works very well. Despite its regional focus, this one feels too much like a production compromised and rendered a little characterless by the requirements of "international" casting. There's a climax of violence and desperation, but the film just hasn't worked up enough suspense for it to have that much impact. It's all a near-miss, no cheesy knock-off but not strong enough to be memorable.

The only other Mingozzi movie I had watched was the notorious if atypical Nunsploitationer FLAVIA, THE HERETIC (1974); this is a similarly serious effort to treat the kidnapping racket that was apparently rife in Sardinia at the time – in this respect, it is only borderline "Euro-Cult", still, the opportunity to be controversial was not shunned (as can be seen from the very first scene in which a car gratuitously smashes into a herd of sheep, mowing down one and crippling another!). The film starts with the abduction of the son of an eminent member of society while he is taking a country-side trip in his car (accompanied by a foreign student, played by Charlotte Rampling); the odd way it all happens, with almost a business-like symbiosis between criminals (hidden away in the mountains) and victim, perplexes the girl (who is left behind). Of course, she tries to dig into the matter but finds nothing but opposition – from authorities, locals and even the man's own family and best friend Franco Nero! Eventually, it transpires that the whole was an elaborate land-grabbing scheme – with the strings being pulled by one of their own (i.e. the landowners); even so, when he gets too big for his boots – since the man starts eying not just land ripe for grazing (which he used to sell for peanuts to the bandits) but seaside property for the raising of hotels and such, his own collaborators turn on him!; the latter had actually been alerted to this fact by Nero, who arranges for himself to be kidnapped in order to rout the guilty party – though, when embarking on this mission, he was unaware that his pal had innocently fallen in a skirmish between kidnappers and Police. The finale, then, sees the villain literally being 'taken for a ride' by Nero and the dead boy's family…with Rampling once again stranded unable to comprehend a way of life still so primitive and obviously different to her own (which is the true raison d'etre of the film – apart from the human/political drama being depicted, with its expected cinematic interpolations of suspense, action and even a little romance).

A real oddity, this one! A would-be cross between a violent crime thriller (shootouts and kidnappings on the island of Sardinia) and a National Geographic documentary (rugged scenery and peasant customs). To make it even more confusing, 60s style icon Charlotte Rampling looks as if she'd just wandered in from an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. Mind you, she does look gorgeous. Alas, when I saw it, her love scene with Latino hunk Franco Nero was ignominiously snipped by censors at the Romanian Cinematheque. (Where else would you see this movie?) Its director, Gianfranco Mingozzi, ascended to Eurotrash heaven with his 1974 'nympho nun' opus Flavia The Heretic.

ISLAND OF CRIME is an early Italian crime flick shot on sunny Sardinia, where British tourist Charlotte Rampling is travelling with her boyfriend before his sudden kidnapping. Franco Nero is the kindly stranger who helps her in her quest to rescue him, and it all gets very murky and conspiratorial along the way. This well-shot movie makes good use of the physical presence of the actors, but I found it limited in comparison to gialli of the era, and the real-life animal cruelty is a bit unforgiveable.