L'étrange monsieur Peppino

A story of haunted people from haunted places that doesn't end well. Loosely based on a true story, this is movie is a more of a grim fairytale in which the characters are marginalised people who live in squalor. Definitely not a feel-good movie but worth watching.

It's a noir, no doubt... you even have the dark lady. Take three excellent actors, a well-chosen setting, a young and talented director, and you have L'imbalsamatore. Once again, when an Italian director is really good, like Sergio Leone, he can take an American film genre, turn it upside down and make a great Italian movie. However, Garrone proved how good he is not just by filming this, but by making another masterpiece, that is, Gomorra. If you like this one, try also the other movie. Basically one of the plots of Gomorra is set in the same places where L'imbalsamatore is set.

Another important element of the film is the landscape. When Italian directors are at their best, they can render landscape like no one. Garrone can do this with the wastelands of Northern Campania.

Hats off, then, to Ernesto Mahieux, who delivers an impressive performance that you won't forget easily...

Definitely not a movie for everyone. I looked for this movie immediately after seeing the most recent Garrone feature, Primo Amore (First Love) currently in the Festival circuit.

The structure of the movies is non surprisingly very similar: a love story that transcends understanding and plays with common notions of relationship and sexuality, eventually trespassing into obsession. Again Garrone starts from a true story, but tries to make something universal, abstracting it from time (no modern technology) and space. The geography of the action is clear (well, at least to Italian) but the beautiful photography transforms the landscape into chiaroscuro paintings of foggy uncertainty. Ernesto Mahieux is the perfect choice for the central character-- a strong although somewhat physically stunted, madly in love protagonist.

This is one movie that is difficult to classify: it's not a thriller, and very few will consider this a love story, although it borrows elements from both genres to construct something unique that gets under the skin of the spectator. Think Fellini and Lynch, but without the gratuitous weirdness. A little gem, for the few who will get it.

Matteo Garrone's deeply morbid subjective reflection from Italy is an insightful musing of two characters, and then a third which works as an agitator. The short man finds the tall man at the zoo, where he is watching a vulture. The short guy, named Peppino, is a sweet talker. He's about 50, balding, under 5 feet tall. The tall guy, named Valerio, is a head turner, about 20, attractive, over 6 feet tall. As they struggle to recall where they've met before, the perspective periodically shifts from the humans to the vulture, a bird that survives by detecting dead meat. The picture is mangled, the sound is dampened, and we get an inverted look of the bird blinking its eyes. Valerio says animals are his strongest interest. Funny, says Peppino, they're also his. He is a taxidermist.

Peppino, with a light manner and a genial grin, is a beast of prey who likes to entice young men with his money and favors. Valerio, who is told extraordinary things about his Adonis-like looks, is not very smart, and likes to be charmed. Peppino works by artifice, taking Valerio to clubs and hiring hookers for parties; the two friends end up in bed with the girls, and Valerio doesn't see that for Peppino, the girls are the snare and he is the sitting duck.

The Embalmer is adept at camouflaging its real essence and rattling us with the shifts of the plot. Among the movie's charades are not all overstated, but eerily implicit. Does Peppino see himself as a homosexual, or as a philanderer who likes good buddies and is open-minded in bed? Does Valerio know Peppino wants him? Does Valerio favor Peppino's money or Deborah's abundant sexual skill? Is Valerio totally retarded? Twice he infuriates Deborah by standing her up; he continues go along with Peppino's insistence upon just one more time. Is it a defect or an advantage of the film that we don't always know what occurs? Another intended question I think, as we ponder over Valerio, a babe in the woods who, when he's not with the one he loves, loves the one he's with, if he loves at all.

This incredibly unsettling and implacable experience takes place largely in Italian beach towns, but in a gray season, against chilled, steeled skies. The sea is nonetheless far away and dejected, and Garrone's images bleed the life out of some scenes. The music is a sobbing, deeply haunting jazz abstraction. This is not a comedy or a sexploitation pic, but a prurient matter concerning two obsessed pursuants and their prey, whose physicality may have made life such a breeze for him that he never got the dexterity to live it.

It may sound absurd that a balding old midget could seduce an apparently heterosexual young Apollo out of the arms of an insatiable woman, but after Deborah checks Peppino out, she knows she has to take him seriously. What the short man wants, he goes after with skill, guile…and desperate longing. And it's compelling to watch him maneuver.

A fantastic dramatic feature that uses the conventional exploitation features. Peppino is a man who suffers from dwarfism and he can't handle it because he's a lonely man who needs attention, love, and most of all, company. His work is creepy enough to keep people away from him; he's an embalmer who has nexus with the mafia of Napoli.

Suddenly he meets the young and handsome Valerio who quickly becomes his best friend because he treats Peppino like a normal person although he's discriminated by a part of society. Peppino suddenly becomes obsessed with him to the point that both their lives are at risk.

Everything turns into a nightmare when Valerio meets and then falls in love with the spectacular and sexy Deborah. Peppino becomes very jealous and does everything possible to keep the couple separated. Sadly enough, his dark intentions lead to a sad and moving ending...

This movie is not 100% exploitation because it's made on a solid plot structure and character development. I would consider this as an Art film with slight exploitation references and black comedy issues.

For example, when I mention exploitation I put as an example Valerio's dream (or nightmare?) where Peppino comes into his bedroom at night and tries to do him oral sex. That scene hints the audience that Peppino is sexually attracted to Valerio even though they party with prostitutes, drinks, and women in general.

Anyways, this movie also displays the complex relationships between a woman-man couple, and a friendship between a physically normal young man and a man with dwarfism. Not a common movie for Hollywood's standards.

I totally recommend this movie for those who are tired of Hollywood's crap.

Oh and I have to mention that it features some DELIGHTFULLY BEAUTIFUL places from the always spectacular Italy. I'm glad I had the chance to visit some places.

A beautiful movie with a STRONG message.

Ernesto Mahieux ... Peppino Valerio Foglia Manzillo ... Valerio Elisabetta Rocchetti ... Deborah