This early giallo has the look of Bazzoni's later The Fifth Cord and the mood of his last film Footprints On the Moon, and once again the director impresses with a mix of noir-ish visuals and people thinking a lot.
Bernardo is a burned out writer who, following a failed relationship, heads to a hotel on the edge of a lake where he was once infatuated with a maid named Tilde. He plans to take their relationship further, but only if he can find her. He should have probably asked where she was while he was on the phone booking a room because it turns out that Tilde committed suicide the previous winter. Maybe he booked through Trivago or something and didn't get the chance to speak to a real person.
Someone in town confides in Bernardo that there's a rumour going around town that as well as ingesting poison Tilde must also have accidentally slashed her own neck with a knife too, which sets off Bernardo on a quest to find out what really happened to this woman he was technically stalking. Seriously - at one point we get a flashback to Bernardo spying on Tilde getting some from a mysterious horny stranger.
The mystery deepens as certain characters in the hotel start behaving strangely. First off there's the owner's daughter Irma, who is upset that the family's reputation is shattered, then there's her brother Mario and his weird wife who barely talks and walks around the lake at midnight, then there's the owner himself, whose happy, servile façade begins to slip as Bernardo goes snooping around the place.
Although there's not a lot of action in this one the general moodiness of the piece is cranked way up. Just like the brilliant Fifth Cord, Bazzoni uses light sources a lot here and often has his actors standing in front of harsh lighting, saving the weirdest light tricks for when Bernardo is either fantasising about the suspects motives or having one of many vivid dreams. There's quite a lot to compare to Footprints on the Moon as well, with one lonely character in a deserted holiday resort trying to figure some strange puzzle out.
For a really early giallo, and for Bazzoni's debut, this is a slick, well made film. It would be a good double-bill with Libido and The Third Eye (an early giallo with all the nastiness in place).
