The Double

First I must confess that I'm not a big fan of gialli. I've seen enough of them to know that they almost invariably play gleefully on the audience's prurient and senselessly violent impulses, and, to boot, a good percentage of them are inept in the filmmaking department. There usually isn't much of interest for someone looking for quality cinema. THE DOUBLE is one of the exceptions.

The film shares its flashback structure with Claude Sautet's poignant French drama LE CHOSES DE LA VIE. In addition, "The Double" would be a very fitting companion piece to Aldo Lado's MALASTRANA, a giallo which it closely resembles, and which also stars Jean Sorel.

Frank (Sorel) is an indolent playboy living off proceeds from his father's business. As the film begins, Frank drives his Citroen into a Rome parking garage and is shot by a mysterious bearded man. The remainder of the story is a series of flashbacks, as the dying Frank recollects how he arrived at his present circumstance: Frank was married to the lovely but dimwitted Lucia(Ewa Aulin), but secretly pined after her mirror-image, more sophisticated mother Nora(Lucia Bose). When Nora became involved with an American drifter, Eddie(Sergio Doria), Frank was green with envy. Things spiral out of control....but not as one would expect. By the climax, the moral comes into focus: Keeping one's passions unchecked can lead to ruin. Not exactly a new notion, but it's intriguingly explored here.

"The Double" is not without its flaws. The (customarily, for an Italian film) incongruous folk music and the anything-goes attitude towards sex and lounging about are badly dated; early sections of the film are languorous and convoluted; the final scene is not quite clear, at least in the version I saw. I would love to see a subtitled incarnation of the film, as dubbing is oft disconcerting and poorly recorded.

Director Romolo Guerrieri is the real star of the proceedings. His commanding style and aplomb with the intercutting is impressive. There are countless striking visual flourishes throughout.

I saw this under the title Love Inferno about five months ago. It begins with a man, Giovanni, being shot in a parking garage. What did he do to deserve this fate? The film flashes back to show how things went wrong for this playboy. While on honeymoon in Africa, Giovanni meets the sexy mother of his (attractive) wife. Since the mother is played by Lucia Bose, I can understand the guy's predicament. The mother-in-law is, needless to say, appalled by the advances of her daughter's new husband and instead takes up with a young hippie type. Jealousy and frustration follow. I was certain where the film was going but turned out to be only partially right. Ewa Aulin, certainly no wallflower either, plays the wife. After only five months, I'm having a hard time remembering much about the film. It was okay but don't expect an erotic thriller - the film is lacking on both counts.

This is all most enjoyable if insubstantial. It looks good and sounds good throughout. Jean Sorel effective, as ever, without seeming to put himself too far out. Just a raised eyebrow is often all he needs to do to convey to us his thinking. Bit bewildering at times with much flashing back and forth but the two ladies help, both Lucie Bose and Ewa Aulin as mother and daughter are easy on the eye, in and out of their clothes. Many films of this time had prolonged sequences somewhere in them where half naked lovers ran along a beach or galloped horses in the surf or ran into sunlight through cornfields but this film, at times, seems to consist of just those dreamy (but insignificant) moments.

Very slow giallo which spreads the states of mind of the idle architect Giovanni (Jean Sorel, Il dolce corpo di Deborah from the same director), who lives at the expense of his industrial brother (Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Sette scialli di seta gialla), and fails to gladden his young wife Lucia (Ewa Aulin, Col cuore in gola), whom he prefers deceiving with his glamour mother-in-law (Lucia Bosè, Le Testament d'Orphée). Pushed by his jealousy towards a charming and hippie American reader of Mao and Malcolm X (Sergio Doria, L'Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco), who happens to be gay, and furthermore stuck in a revolted mood which only turns into plain conformism, Giovanni commits himself in a spiral of self-destruction.

But let's begin by the end as does the movie: Giovanni is shot to death in an underground parking by a bearded killer (Antonio Pierfederici, La maschera del demonio), and in the very next scene he is naked and happy with is wife on a North African beach. For the whole film is made of flashback episodes revealing step by step the way which has lead to his murder. If the plot thus constantly looks backward to paint the events, so seems to do the film itself built as an old fashioned first timer psychological giallo, while the style has frankly already gone towards other directions. Whilst the whole cast seems to enjoy their quite everlasting holidays under the sun, the hero can conclude disenchanted: «In that case it was all done for nothing».

A man called Giovanni is shot in an underground car park by an ominous old man. The rest of the story is told in disjointed flashbacks that piece together the scenario that resulted in this situation arising. It turns out that Giovanni is an idle playboy who has affair with his young wife's mother while holidaying in Morocco. The mother ends up taking up with an American drifter and Giovanni is consumed with jealousy; murder follows.

The Double is a pretty interesting thriller. Its structure is one of the primary reasons why. The way in which scenes are edited together in a non-chronological way gives it a mysterious and dreamlike feel. The soundtrack accentuates this tone, seeing as it's a score that can best be described as breezy. The film benefits from the presence of Jean Sorel as Giovanni. Sorel starred in several gialli from the time and always seems to put in a solid turn. Also of note is Ewa Aulin as Sorel's young wife. Aulin had earlier appeared in the ultra-weird Death Laid an Egg, here she is also good and cute as a button; she even has time for an extended naked underwater swim, which was nice.

This is a good film. It isn't a typical giallo; it's more of a psychological thriller. It's well acted and directed and it isn't particularly predictable. If you like Italian thrillers then you should like this too.