The Laplace's Demon

I write from Italy and I do it proudly after witnessing this good Italian product. Certainly you can breathe the air of the most famous films played by Karloff in the glorious past years and this script cannot be compared to those wonderful masterpieces. Nevertheless I can say that overall the film of this film has many points in its favor: the well-represented Gothic style, the cleanliness of the images helped by CGI, the play of light and shadow and the wonderful work on sound surrounded by beautiful music. still make it a great product. The suspense is not lacking, not even the mystery and the viewer is kept with the right tension for the duration. Certainly the interpretations are not those of the American sacred monsters and some holes in writing are noted, as well as the lack of special effects. All in all my assessment of this little gem remains high and makes me feel proud to be Italian.

This is one of those stories where you may end up watching to the end to see what happens, and then feel disappointed that it ended in the most obvious way possible. It's unclear whether the filmmakers endorse the fatalistic ideas of the villain, or ran out of ideas, but I found myself wishing they had embraced the randomnness and irrationality expressed by one of the other characters, rather than marching to the finish.

After a while, the core concept of the film also strains believability - it's basically the predictive science of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation, but applied to individual humans - exactly the way Asimov's series speculated it wouldn't work. To give it credit, the film addresses this point, and for a little while you can almost believe it would work in this situation, but after a while, it gets silly.

The style and execution though, are totally fun. The film seems to be going for some mashup of the Twilight Zone, film noir, and maybe even surrealist films like Maya Deren's, and fully embraces the ability of modern CG to extend sets and render the darkest shadows and moodiest glimmers of light possible. The acting and camera work are both in your face, overdramatic, to what could be a campy degree, but it feels refreshingly different from our current era's conventions. While everything is clearly artificial, the rough edges never get in the way of the story.

When the credits roll, you'll see the same few names repeated over and over - maybe unnecessary, but it drives home the point of how much low budget, small crewed film making can achieve these days. I just wish they'd taken a few more risks and explored their ideas further.

The story is a smart, steady paced suspense mystery told with claustrophobic, well thought out shots that frame the contrast between light and shadow beautifully. The characters, though not completely actualized, are both intriguing and familiar characters. They are the ideal fashion of indulgent self worth and intellect one expects to find gathered at such an outlandish, and Gothic deathtrap on an island in the middle of the sea.

The writing and dialog is clever, concise banter, super smart theoretical explanatory summary, that makes the film elevated concepts approachable and comfortable for the "everyman", and is entertaining. The scenes are stunning and the special effects are so cleverly done. Not to mention that "The Laplace's Demon" utilizes, so creatively, one of the best props to create such effective moments of suspense- a dollhouse. Overall this is a great, modern day revival of classic horror.

A group of researchers have developed a system that enables them to calculate seemingly random events, i.e., how many pieces a glass will shatter into when dropped from a table to the floor. Their studies attract the attention of a mysterious Professor, who invites them to his very remote house on top of a very steep rock in the middle of the ocean. But when they arrive, the Professor is not there, and instead he invites them to take part in an experiment of his devising. All they have to do is survive until dawn…. This is a first feature from writer/director/actor Giordano Giulivi, and it's absolutely wonderful. Montreal's FantAsia Festival 2017 was privileged to have the world premiere, complete with director and others involved at the screening; he mentioned that it took his filmmaking team 7 ½ years to make this film and it's easy to see why, given the really beautiful look of the (black and white) film, its atmospheric qualities and it's combination of incredibly detailed mechanistic movement via cogs and wheels along with the occasional pause for the actors to have a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life. Very Italian, very wonderful!

Marquis Pierre Simon Laplace was one of the most notable French intellectual of the 18th century whose work influenced the scientific fields of mathematics, physics and astronomy. Laplace is widely known for his -almost theological- faith in the purely deterministic nature of the existing world, where an intellect capable to comprehend and analyse the position of all "items of which nature is composed" would find the future no more mysterious than the past. This is a theory that nowadays, in the light of modern approaches especially in the quantum mechanics, seems obsolete, even irrelevant, but this fact doesn't prevent it from being a totally compelling premise for an intriguing film which transcends a number of different genres such as science fiction, crime fiction, horror and others. ''Laplace's Demon'' begins when a number of young scientists are invited by a mysterious super-researcher in his mansion, literally in the middle of nowhere in order to participate in a self-invented experiment which aims to show that everything, including the diverse human behavior, can be totally predicted by a mathematical formula. When they enter the -terrifying- estate they soon realize that they were invited there in order to be killed one by one by an uknown force which takes the form of the chess piece of regina. Gradually, realizing the terrible truth behind the bizarre invitation by the shady professor, they will have to find a way to move as unpredictable as possible, thus to deconstruct and finally destroy the experiment itself. This is a movie that is shot in black and white, a fact that adds to the gloomy and grotesque feeling that permeates the story as a whole. There is also some great dialogue regarding fundamental philosophical and scientific questions about the possibility of a world where free choice is nothing more but a mere illusion, a concept created by the human need to believe that himself is the sole agent of his actions. ''Laplace's Demon'' is a film that every true cinephile should add to his collection and it is really a shame that this little masterpiece is so little-known outside the Italian frontiers. This film who also certainly appeal to the physics as well as the philosophy scholars who prefer to watch movies that truly broaden their horizons in understanding the great world, a little better. This is a solid 5/5 star rating. Not to miss!