Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 281: Tue Oct 8

Illustrious Corpses (Rosi, 1976): Cine Lumiere, 6pm


63rd LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (2nd-13th October 2019) DAY 7

Every day (from October 2nd to October 13th) I will be selecting the London Film Festival choices you have a chance to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go to see them at the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out by the time you read this as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is all the information you need about the best way to get tickets.

This restoration of Francesco Rosi's classic conspiracy thriller is also being screened at BFI Southbank on October 10th at 3.15pm. You can find the full details here.


Chicago Reader review:
The serial assassinations of judges in a provincial town trigger a national investigation in this 1975 political thriller by the first-rate Italian auteur Francesco Rosi. Trying out his theory of a lone, vengeful killer, an inspector dispatched from Rome (hound faced Lino Ventura in a hauntingly glum portrayal) uncovers an unholy coalition of established power factions concealing the truth from the people. In its depiction of pervasive corruption and rampant paranoia, the film is very much a signpost for the late 60s and early 70s; it brings to mind Coppola's The Conversation, another intricate study of a society under surveillance, whose citizens are manipulated to accept the government's version of the truth. To heighten the vague sense of menace, Rosi's camera voyeuristically suggests the characters stalking or being stalked. And the film?s texture—shifting between the naturalistic and the hallucinatory, with hypothetical statements and flashbacks shot in black and white—is designed to unsettle us, as is the multilayered, almost musicless sound track. Even creepier are the deep-focused, Chirico-like images of long corridors in a hall of justice, an art museum, and a catacomb littered with the corpses of ancient magistrates—ominous spaces holding secrets of the past and present. The serial assassinations of judges in a provincial town trigger a national investigation in this 1975 political thriller by the first-rate Italian auteur Francesco Rosi. Trying out his theory of a lone, vengeful killer, an inspector dispatched from Rome (hound faced Lino Ventura in a hauntingly glum portrayal) uncovers an unholy coalition of established power factions concealing the truth from the people. In its depiction of pervasive corruption and rampant paranoia, the film is very much a signpost for the late 60s and early 70s; it brings to mind Coppola's The Conversation, another intricate study of a society under surveillance, whose citizens are manipulated to accept the government's version of the truth. To heighten the vague sense of menace, Rosi?s camera voyeuristically suggests the characters stalking or being stalked. And the film?s texture—shifting between the naturalistic and the hallucinatory, with hypothetical statements and flashbacks shot in black and white—is designed to unsettle us, as is the multilayered, almost musicless sound track. Even creepier are the deep-focused, Chirico-like images of long corridors in a hall of justice, an art museum, and a catacomb littered with the corpses of ancient magistrates—ominous spaces holding secrets of the past and present.
Ted Shen

Here (and above) is an extract.


No comments: