Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 259: Wed Sep 16

They Have Changed Their Face (Farina, 1971): Barbican Cinema, 8.30pm


This film screens as part of the excellent Colour of Money season at the Barbican Cinema. You can find the full details of the programme here.

Here is an introduction to the event from Josh Saco, who runs the Cigarette Burns Film Club:
Cigarette Burns was started up to share great films with people, films they might not have seen, or heard of. Corrado Farina's little-seen fable fits better than most, and is without question solidly in my top ten films. 

Drawing upon the legend of Dracula and updating it to a 1970s Italy setting, this eerie drama explores ideas of media manipulation, consumerism and the sheep like tendencies of the public. Lowly automotive employee Alberto Valle's presence is requested at his employer's mountain top villa. He soon senses that all is not right with his surroundings and realises that his employer, Giovanni Nosferatu (Aldolfo Celi) is much more than the head of an automotive company. Stuck in a surreal consumer manipulation cabal, Valle struggles with his morals and fears. 

Cigarette Burms is honoured to be returning to the Barbican, this time, as part of their fantastic autumn season, the Colour of Money. The renowned Prof Patricia MacCormack will be introducing the evening, featured on many Arrow, Redemption and Nucleus Films, Patricia knows her Italian films better than most.


Italian Film website review:
Mist shrouded and sparse countryside, the sort that may be seen in a 
Rollin vampire film, swanky sweaters and cool counterculture sexual liberation. Cars chasing through woodland à la To Be Twenty, the erotic tone of Baba Yaga, the clean minimalist interiors of Femina ridens and a within a Gothic setting. There are crypts and golf courses, superstitious villagers and even a car through the streets opening that is more common to the Eurocrime genre. Corrado Farina directs and Adolfo Celi is Nosferatu, the bloodsucking capitalist.

 
Politically radical in tone, the film runs with the concept of personal liberation and freedom and builds this within the context of a political, social and economic conspiracy as industrialists, politicians, media and church conspire and quote Fellini, Freud, Jean-Luc Godard, de Sade and Marx while preparing a marketing campaign for LSD sprays in family sized bottles that are ready to ship to the shops while re-branding ecologically unsound detergent as Clean Water.

Sex is allowed in the workplace, but not reading, freedom is an illusion of marketing men and jingles play in the shower. Those who dig the brainy erotica of  The Lickerish Quartet or even the conspiratorial tone of Short Night of Glass Dolls should make every effort to track this baby down.

Nigel Maskell
Here (and above) is the trailer.

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