Grain monochrome. In it, we see a screaming tied man, around whom two figures in white hoods scurry, inflicting stab wounds on the helpless, and behind the scenes a stream of consciousness about the colors current in the veins, about Death, its coming, carrying away to Purification ...
In a small town comes Stefano - artist-restorer, pretty young teacher Francesca, as well as several faces for the masses. Stefano meets the dwarf mayor on the shore and takes him to the church to inspect the fresco of St. Sebastian, discovered a while ago and painted by a local celebrity of the past Lignani, a madman and artist of Agony (as the locals remember him). Stefano is called to the town to restore this work to increase the tourist attraction of the area.
The film is a delightful desert sparsely populated area with its “skeleton in the closet”, seeking to use foreign guests in their own selfish interests and spit in formaldehyde, by the way, F. is used in the production of film. The town is inhabited by “crackers”: Stefano-Antonio’s friend, with whom the last, nervous, stingy paranoid, met here; the rest: an aging whore-teacher who regrets the departing beauty; fools at church; a drunken scandalist, drowning a load of memories and knowledge in a glass of wine; a terminally ill grandmother, chained to a bed in a huge, crumbling house with rustles and creaks; a simpleton police chief; many more interesting characters will open up before. Amazing concentration of the mentally weakened per square meter of the picture.
Pupi Awati, without alloy delights and camera tricks, told a fascinating story with juicy colors, shuffled with clouded footage from the past, tangled in a magnetic recording on a wire, and falling fog on the night streets. What night, what day - the town is always dangerous, not scouring creatures roaring in the dark, but the Secret behind closed windows ... The actors are good, ranging from Lino Cappalicio in the role of a simple intellectual-village detective to the last name in the credits, all very bright and memorable, it is a pity that Francesca Marciano, in speed, left the acting path, but did not leave the cinema, remaining in it, as a rather high-quality screenwriter.
Magnificent representative of "Giallo", despite the timekeeping, not tiresome at all. Fans of concentrated violence will be extremely disappointed by the calm flow and movement of the investigation, as well as the bloodlessness of most of the timekeeping. But this picture accumulates all the strength for the last detective strike.
8 out of 10