Parky at the Pictures (DVD 10/8/2017)

ARTHOUSE.

Abel Gance's J'ACCUSE (1919) - Taking its title from Émile Zola's Dreyfus denunciation, this silent epic has been variously hailed as a pacifist masterpiece and an accidental act of patriotic glorification. Having served with the Section Cinématographique de l'Armée Française, Abel Gance was determined to show audiences the garish realities of life on the Western Front. Indeed, he even re-enlisted with the SCA after being invalided out of the conflict in order to shoot authentic footage of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918. However, he also needed a narrative hook for his message and took a Griffithianly melodramatic approach to the ménage involving short-fused Provençal villager Séverin-Mars, his wife Maryse Dauvray and poet Romuald Joubé. The rivals forge a bond in the trenches, but their old enmity resurfaces when Joubé takes pity on Dauvray after she bears a daughter after being raped by the bestial German invaders. Strikingly photographed by Léonce-Henri Burel and boldly edited by Gance and Andrée Danis, this is often visually overwhelming. The opening contrasts between the rustic idyll and the bellicose fervour is soberingly reinforced by the affecting farewell sequence, as fingers touch for the last time before the enlistees head off in pursuit of glory. But, while Gance makes harrowing use of expressionist shadow and chillingly captures the countenances of soldiers living and dead, the most indelible image sees 2000 troops rise from the battlefield to join Joubé in condemning both those who took La Patrie to war and those who misguidedly supported the senseless slaughter and sacrifice. GW Pabst's WESTFRONT 1918 (1930) - GW Pabst made his sound bow with this powerful denunciation of the futile stalemate that needlessly cost so many lives in the closing weeks of the Great War. Refusing to confine the camera, as was the case with so many early talkies, Pabst and cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner choreographed sinuous tracking shots that took the audience into the heart of the unrelenting misery being endured by German conscripts fighting merely to hold their ground. As with Lewis Milestone's Oscar-winning adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (also 1930), the emphasis is on soldierly suffering and the misconceptions of those awaiting news back home. In adapting Ernst Johannsen's source novel, screenwriters Peter Martin Lampel and Ladislaus Vajda opted for an episodic structure that suggested the confusion and chaos of the campaign, as Berlin everyman Gustav Diessl, cynical Bavarian Fritz Kampers, romantic student Hans-Joachim Moebis and proud lieutenant Claus Clausen variously experience friendly fire, a collapsing trench, a recce mission, a skirmish in no man's land, a tank attack and, in the case of Diesel (who had been a POW during the war), being cuckolded by the local butcher. There's nothing vaguely heroic about their exploits and such is the authenticity of Erno Metzner's production design that the action often feels like newsreel. But, while making subtle use of diegetic music and ambient sound, Pabst dwells on the human side of conflict, with the touching closing sequence in the field hospital emphasising the kinship of the combatants. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Nazis banned the picture for its `false representation' of warfare.

GW Pabst's KAMERADSCHAFT (1931) - Inspired by the 1906 Courrières mining disaster that claimed 1099 lives, this companion to Westfront 1918 sees the Austrian director continue to push his contention that the future of Europe depended upon Franco-German co-operation. The legacy of the Great War remains above and below ground, however, as young boys squabble over games of marbles and a subterranean barrier secures the border that runs through a vast coalfield. Times are hard in Germany, but the French are as unwilling to offer employment as they are to let their girls consort with their erstwhile enemies at a Saturday night dance. But, when fires on the French side of the mine burn out of control, German director Ernst Busch organises a rescue party to try and free trapped miners like Daniel Mendaille and Georges Charlia, who had been so protective of girlfriend Andrée Ducret the night before. Pabst and his trio of screenwriters deftly ensure that we care about these characters, as well as veteran Alex Bernard, who uses his own knowledge of the tunnels to reach grandson Pierre-Louis. But Pabst's greatest debt is owed to production designers Erno Metzner and Karl Vollbrecht, whose sets are entirely convincing while also affording Fritz Arno Wagner's camera the latitude to contrast the bustle above surface with the claustrophobic confinement below. The close-ups of half-lit faces are particularly affecting, as is the scene in which a French miner experiences a flashback to the trenches when he mistakes a rescuer in a gas mask for a prowling foe. Given the shifting political sands in Berlin, Pabst might have plumped for an optimistic ending. But, while he closes with images of the border gate being restored, he doesn't simply blame management for a return to the status quo. Thematically and psychologically, this winner of the League of National peace medal is unforgettable. Technically, it's exceptional.

Federico Fellini's LA STRADA (1954) - Launching one of the most important directorial careers in screen history, this Oscar-winning road movie formed the first part of a `trilogy of solitude' that would be completed by Il Bidone (1955) and Nights of Cabiria (1957). Fellini's better half, Giulietta Masina, is heartbreakingly brilliant as the waif sold for 10,000 lire by her mother to itinerant strongman Anthony Quinn, whose persistent mistreatment of his devoted assistant (after having caused the death of her sister) stirs the emotions of wire-walking clown Richard Basehart after the duo join a circus. Ennio Flaiano toned down much of the sentimentality in the first draft produced by Fellini and Tullio Pinelli and suggested that Masina should draw on the impish innocence of silent clowns like Charlie Chaplin and Harpo Marx, so that her delight in the audience response as she grows in confidence as a performer contrasts more forebodingly with Quinn's one-trick envy. With its biblical and commedia dell'arte subtexts, this is a deceptively complex study of individualism, forgiveness, trust and redemption. In a role originally intended for Burt Lancaster, Quinn can't quite hide his vulnerability from Otello Martelli's prying lens. But, even though he celebrates the lot of the common folk and refuses to flinch from the grimmer aspects of a strolling existence, Fellini was determined to break from the constraints of neo-realism and invests the monochrome action with a sense of lyrical fantasy that makes the denouement all the more distressing.

Diane Kurys's PEPPERMINT SODA (1977) - The sense of adolescent illicitness that seeps through 28 year-old Diane Kurys's debut feature is better captured by its French title, Diabolo Menthe. But this is a wonderful reissue and one can but hope the BFI also revives its impossible to see sequel, Cocktail Molotov (1980). Set in 1963, the story centres on the growing pains of 13 year-old Eléonore Klarwein, who is plunged from an idyllic Normandy holiday with indulgent father Michel Puterflam back into the glum realities of life at a Paris lycée with her older sister, Odile Michel. When not kicking against divorced mother Anouk Ferjac, Klarwein is coping with strict or incompetent teachers and resenting the fact that Michel has a boyfriend (Darius Depoléon) who writes her love letters. As she dabbles in politics by supporting the peace movement, Klarwein is branded a bad influence by the parents of best friend Coralie Clément and her replacement, Marie-Véronique Maurin, promptly runs away from home. But Corinne Dacla proves more durable, as Klarwein gets a role in a school production of Molière and continues her battle with Ferjac to wear stockings instead of socks. Gracefully photographed by Philippe Rousellot, this is a charmingly unforced evocation of an age that effortlessly captures the argot and attitudes of teenage girls being confronted with a rapidly changing world. The décor, costumes and music are as perfect as the performances. A gem.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's LOLA (1981) - Thirty-five years have passed since the enfant terrible of Das Neue Kino died at the age of 36. This lacerating indictment of the postwar economic miracle that took place under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was one of his last features and formed part of the BRD Trilogy with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) and Veronika Voss (1982). Taking its cues from Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930), the screenplay concocted with Peter Marthesheimer and Pea Frohlich sees building commissioner Armin Mueller-Stahl arrive in a small West German town in 1955 to clean up the corruption on the council. However, he is distracted by Barbara Sukowa, the daughter of his housekeeper, Karin Baal. What he doesn't know, however, is that she has a child with Mario Adorf, the owner of the sleazy cabaret where Sukowa is the star turn. Impeccably played by a fine ensemble, this is melodrama of the highest order, with Fassbinder making typically telling use of the décor to examine the emotional state of characters struggling to come to terms with new realities and venalities. Rolf Zehetbauer's sets and Barbara Baum's costumes are superbly photographed in rich colour by Xaver Schwarzenberger. But Fassbinder is cynically aware that this idyll is as much an illusion as Sukowa's bourgeois respectability.

BLACK COMEDY.

Douglas Hickox's ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE (1970) - This is the first of two Joe Orton plays that reached the screen three years after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Despite winning an Evening Standard drama award in 1964, Orton's debut stage work flopped on Broadway after just 13 performances and Clive Exton's revision does little to convince that New Yorkers spurned a masterpiece. There are plenty of zinging one-liners, while the insights into nymphomania, homosexuality and sadism have a quaintly dated venom. Moreover, the performances are commendably committed, as fortysomething spinster Beryl Reid spots drifter Peter McEnery lounging on a tombstone and invites him to lodge at the house she shares with ailing father Alan Webb. He thinks he recognises McEnery as the killer of his old boss. However, Reid and pink Cadillac-driving brother Harry Andrews are too busy squabbling over the interloper to notice his potential threat. Hickox's direction is as modishly sharp as Wolfgang Suschitzky's close-ups, Michael Seymour's sets and Georgie Fame's score. But this scarcely compares with Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem (1966).

Silvio Narizzano's LOOT (1970) - While they may have been scabrously subversive in the 1960s, the plays of Joe Orton have not worn wonderfully well and not even writers of the calibre of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson can prevent this frantic farce from fraying at the edges opened out by trendy Canadian helmer, Silvio Narizzano. There's certainly none of the macabre wit that made Tallulah Bankhead's Hammer outing in Frantic (1965) so disconcertingly engaging or the finesse that rendered Georgy Girl (1966) so poignantly witty. Instead, literal direction and a lack of actorly restraint makes the efforts of gay crook Hywel Bennett to hide the proceeds of a bank robbery in the coffin of lover Roy Holder's late mother seem a tad desperate to amuse. Too busy grieving to notice either that much-married Irish nurse Lee Remick is trying to lure him up the aisle or that Richard Attenborough is behaving more like a bent copper than a man from the water board, widower Milo O'Shea valiantly strives to hold the sitcomedic shenanigans together, but it's all a bit of a battle.

Ben Wheatley's FREE FIRE - Being prolific is a risky business, as Britain's auteur du jour discovers in this Tarantinoesque throwback to the 1970s `shoot `em up' movie. Selecting his timezone to make sense of an IRA gun deal, to justify the outlandish outfits and hairdos and to ensure that no one can use a mobile phone to call for back-up, Wheatley and writing partner Amy Jump seem to delight in setting themselves logistical and stylistic puzzles to solve as rival gangs front up at a remote Boston warehouse. Armie Hammer nobly attempts to keep the peace, but his chances recede once Cillian Murphy becomes convinced that Sharlto Copley has an agenda. Michael Smiley, Brie Larson, Sam Riley and Enzo Cilenti make up Team Irish, while Babou Ceesay, Noah Taylor and Jack Reynor line-up behind the shifty Copley. The cast relish their accents and tics, while cinematographer Laurie Rose and sound designer Martin Pavey have a field day. But, while Wheatley and Jump's editing is as sharp as their choice of John Denver tracks, this too often feels like someone has tried to make a video game in the style of Sam Peckinpah.

COMEDY.

Will Hay & Basil Dearden's THE GOOSE STEPS OUT (1942) - For a bungler, Will Hay gave the Third Reich a torrid time. He bested Nazi spies in Marcel Varnel's The Ghost of St. Michael's and exposed fifth columnists in The Black Sheep of Whitehall (both 1941), which he co-directed at Ealing with Basil Dearden. The pair reunited for the pick of Hay's tussles with Hitler, which borrows elements from the previous successes, as screenwriters Angus Macphail and John Dighton pander to Hay's genius for bluster and punning wordplay. No one watching this will ever be able to think of pincer panzer movements without smirking. But the jokes are not all at the expense of the foe, as British characteristics are cheerfully joshed in order to mock the Master Race. Realising that Hay is a dead ringer for a German spy master, British Intelligence smuggles him into the university where Professor Frank Pettingell is working on a new fire bomb. Students Peter Ustinov, Charles Hawtrey and Barry Morse suspect something is amiss. But as they are Austrians enslaved after the Anschluss, they help Hay smuggled a prototype back to Blighty after nerve-wracking journeys aboard a train and a plane. Hay's classroom exchanges with Ustinov and Hawtrey are the highlight of a romp that sometimes feels a little rushed. But the demands of churning out morale-boosting propaganda left little time for script polishing and this still raises plenty of smiles 75 years on.

Waris Husein's MELODY (aka S.W.A.L.K., 1971) - Numbering Davids Puttnam and Hemmings among its producers and Alan Parker as its scriptwriter, this is the kind of tweenage charmer that modern film-makers drench with coy sentiment. Reuniting Mark Lester and Jack Wild from Carol Reeds Oscar-winning musical, Oliver! (1968), the story is set at a London comprehensive and chronicles the crumbling of a beautiful friendship after the scampish Wild loses his heart to 11 year-old Tracy Hyde at the school disco. But, while the prim Lester is initially dismayed to lose his buddy to a girl, he rallies to their cause when their parents and teachers voice their disapproval of not just their romance, but also their desire to get married. The ending has an air-punchingly feel-good quality that is reinforced by Peter Suschitzky's shimmering photography and the sprinkling of musical gems by The Bee Gees and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The young leads are a joy, with the debuting Hyde (who would feature in Christian Marnham's The Orchard End Murder, 1981 - see below) excelling alongside her more experienced co-stars. But Roy Kinnear and Kate Williams and Keith Barron and Sheila Steafel also shine as the bemused in-laws-to-be. Maurice Hatton's LONG SHOT (1978) - The latest entry in the BFIs excellent Flipside series follows aspiring Glaswegian producer Charles Gormley on a thankless schlepp through the wasteland of the Edinburgh Film Festival in the hope of finding a backer for his next project. With screenwriter Neville Smith and leading lady Ann Zelda in tow, Gormley sounds out Wim Wenders and John Boorman about directing after Samuel Fuller fails to show. He also chats to Susannah York about the possibility of pipping Sylvia Kristel to an underwritten role in Gulf and Western, an adventure set against the backdrop of the Aberdeen oil industry that needs a rewrite or four. However, the genial Gormley mixes her up with Julie Christie and Lynn Redgrave, which is all the more amusing as York had headlined Hatton's 1964 short, Scene Nun, Take One. Other old pals getting in on the act include Bill Forsyth (who had formed Tree Films with Hatton) and Stephen Frears, whose 1971 debut, Gumshoe, had been scripted by Smith, whose doctor in the film is none other than Alan Bennett. Written with knowing insight by Eoin McCann and photographed by Mike Davis on short ends and expired East German ORWO stock, this has less in common with Annie Griffin's Festival (2005) than Luc Moullet's Les Sièges de l'Alcazar (1989).

DOCUMENTARY.

Bruce Brown's THE ENDLESS SUMMER (1966) - With a twangy soundtrack by The Sandals and the most thrilling seaside cinematography in screen history, this is the ultimate surfing documentary. Following sensation-seekers Michael Hynson and Robert August from California to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa in pursuit of `the perfect wave', Bruce Brown and his 16mm camera seems to capture the essence of the Sixties inside the four-foot breaker off Cape St Francis that offers 15 minutes of sensual serenity. The commentary isn't always politically correct and occasionally lapses into air-headed hyperbole. But the footage inside the `Pipeline' is jaw-dropping; as is the fact that Brown made his masterpiece for just $50,000.

Bruce Brown's ON ANY SUNDAY (1971) - Bankrolled by Steve McQueen, this Oscar-nominated survey of the American motorcycling scene strives to capture the romance of The Endless Summer. But racers in leathers and mud-spattered crash helmets negotiating anywheresville courses are nowhere near as chic or cinematic as bronzed torsos riding waves in exotic locales. Cinematographer Robert E. Collin does what he can with telephoto lenses, while some of the competitors sportingly wore helmet cameras to provide some nerve-jangling point-of-view shots. Moreover, Brown tries to liven things up with footage of ice racing in Russia, desert challenges in Mexico and endurance tests in Spain. But, with McQueen only making fleeting appearances and riders like Malcolm Smith, Mert Lawwill and David Aldana resisting almost all efforts to depict them as daredevil mavericks, this is one that's best left to the petrolheads.

Reiner Holzemer's DRIES - Having produced profiles of photographers William Eggleston, Juergen Teller and Anton Corbijn, German documentarist Reiner Holzemer turns his attention to Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten in this engaging, but somewhat stilted snapshot. Born into a tailoring family and trained at the Royal Academy in Antwerp in the late 1970s, Van Noten emerged alongside Walter van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and Marina Yee in a cabal that became known as the Antwerp Six after they took London Fashion Week by storm in 1986 with their ready-to-wear collections. Van Noten has since acquired a reputation as a cerebral designer and journalist Suzy Menkes, curator Pamela Golbin and style icon Iris Apfel are among those to sing his praises. But the more revealing insights come when Van Noten is either relaxing with partner Patrick Vangheluwe and their Airedale terrier, Harry, or pottering with a perfectionist's precision in his garden.

Colin McCabe, Christopher Roth and Tilda Swinton's THE SEASONS IN QUINCY: FOUR PORTRAITS OF JOHN BERGER - Polymath John Berger won the Booker Prize with G, wrote and presented the landmark BBC arts series, Ways of Seeing (both 1972), and teamed with Swiss director Alain Tanner to script such underrated films as The Salamander (1971), The Middle of the World (1974) and Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976). However, he is ill-served by this well-meaning, but strangely self-serving enterprise, in which four film-makers strive to capture different aspects of his intellect and personality. In Colin McCabe's `Ways of Listening', Berger watches actress Tilda Swinton making an apple crumble at his retreat in Quincy in the Haute-Savoie, while ruminating about their shared 5 November birthday and the fact that each had a father who was reluctant to discuss their war exploits. The focus shifts to animals in Christopher Roth's `Spring', which fussily intercuts clips of Jacques Derrida holding forth so that Berger can hold a sort of dialogue with him, while the pretension quotient almost goes off the scale in McCabe and Bartek Dziadosz's `A Song for Politics', which pits the lifelong Marxist humanist against crashingly smug bores Akshi Singh and Ben Lerner in a competition to see who can deliver political platitudes in the most pompous manner. Thank goodness, therefore, for Swinton's teenage twins, Xavier and Honor, who chat to Berger about his late wife Beverly Bancroft in `Harvest', while also picking raspberries, meeting up with his son Yves and learning to ride a motorbike.

DRAMA.

Ennio de Concini's HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS (1973) - Alfred Hitchcock was once linked with an adaptation of Hugh Trevor-Roper's study of Adolf Hitler's stay in the Berlin bunker. But, while the former Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford attests to the accuracy of its action, this often tawdry reconstruction has to draw on a tome by Gerhardt Boldt for its account of Hitler (Alec Guinness) dividing his time between giving orders for a futile rearguard against the Red Army, grumbling about people smoking and drinking, and canoodling with Eva Braun (Doris Kunstmann). She attempts to raise morale after the Führer's joyless 56th birthday with an Al Jolson impression, while flying ace Hanna Reitsch (Diane Cilento) pays her respects and Magda Goebbels (Barbara Jefford) has her six children serenade Hitler before mercy killing them. Indeed, all the key survivors of the Reich are present and (sort of) correct and the calibre of the supporting cast is unquestionable. Yet Ennio de Concini gets the tone wrong by failing to temper the sense of doom with the eagerness of the hierarchy and the High Command to end the nightmare and either make good their escape (by flight or suicide) or take their chances in an Allied courtroom. The sets and costumes are convincing enough under Ennio Guarnieri's unrelenting lens. But Kevin Connor's editing is as eccentric as De Concini's direction is heavy handed. Consequently, despite Guinness's best efforts, this isn't a patch on Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (2004). Yet it isn't the pantomimic travesty that some have claimed, either.

Jack Gold's THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT (1975) - Earning John Hurt a BAFTA when it aired on Thames Television, this adaptation of Quentin Crisp's eponymous 1968 memoir is somewhat inevitably reissued to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act. However, this account of how Denis Pratt became `one of the stately homos of England' is so beautifully judged that it's always a pleasure to revisit. That said, this is no coy trip down a petal-strewn memory lane, as Crisp surives the normalisation efforts of his middle-class parents to blossom at art school behind the skirts of a platonic galpal (Liz Gebhardt). But an encounter with a transvestite prostitute (Roger Lloyd Pack) transforms Crisp into a flamboyant exhibitionist, whose outré behaviour alienates him from his closeted 1920s bretheren. Romance of a sort follows a stint as a rent boy before Crisp finds his métier as a commercial artist. Regular beatings result in him losing his job, however, and he shacks up with a ballet teacher (Patricia Hodge) before a liaison with a civil servant (John Forbes-Robertson) is followed by wartime adventures with American servicemen. A court appearance allows Crisp to grandstand in the witness box before he finds unconventional companionship with a suicidal Pole (Stanley Lebor). The secondary characters are mostly ciphers, but Philip Mackie's teleplay eschews sensationalism and sentimentality, while Alan Cameron's production design and Martin Baugh's costumes are as astute as Gold's award-winning direction. But Hurt is most definitely the show.

HORROR.

Christian Marnham's THE ORCHARD END MURDER (1981) - Following Saxon Logan's featurette Sleepwalker (1984) into the BFI's Flipside series, this darkly comic supporting picture was shown in UK cinemas alongside Gary Sherman's shock flick about a reanimating mortician, Dead & Buried. Marking Christian Marnham's set up from commercials, it's set in the autumn of 1966 and follows cinema usherette Tracy Hyde's ill-advised ramble through the Kent countryside around Charthurst Green after she gets bored watching boyfriend Mark Hardy play cricket. Sixtysomething gatekeeper Bill Wallis seems harmless enough and Hyde accepts his invitation to take tea. But his hulkingly slow-witted assistant, Clive Mantle, is not so welcoming. Crisply photographed by Peter Jessop, who had worked on such Pete Walker chillers as House of Whipcord (1974) and Schizo (1976), this fact-based scenario teasingly flits between the pastoral and the psychotic and even teeters on the verge of the pornographic in lingering over the murdered Hyde's naked torso. But this is very much adult fare, with the parodic depiction of an Edenic England being slyly contrasted with the awful events happening abroad. Made for a pittance, this is an admirable rediscovery, especially as it features Rik Mayall's acting debut as a policeman. But you will never look at a pile of apples in the same way ever again.

Patrice Rhomm's ELSA: FRÄULEIN SS (1977) - Also known as Captive Women 4, Devil Fräulein SS and Fräulein Kitty, this chunk of Nazisploitation came from the pen of its French director and cohorts Marius Lesouer and Victor Hardia. Filmed back to back with Helga, She Wolf of Spilberg, it stars Malisa Longo as a former prostitute whose kinky inclinations make her the perfect madame for a Nazi pleasure train travelling through occupied Europe with the express intention of lulling unsuspecting spies, traitors and deserters into betraying secrets and comrades during their post-coital pillow talk. Patrice Rhomm had used much the same storyline in Hitler's Last Train (1977). But the presence of Longo, who had taken a minor role in Tinto Brass's infamous Salon Kitty (1976) gave this shamelessly magpieing version a superior cachet. While snooping on soldiers, however, Longo also has to try to keep SS major Olivier Mathot out of the clutches of coquette Patrizia Gori. It's all a bit sleazy and sluggish, but it also has its unsettlingly atmospheric moments without ever reaching the shudder-inducing sadism of Don Edmonds's Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS (1975), with the markedly more menacing Dyanne Thorne.

Luciano Onetti's FRANCESCA (2015) - The spirit of Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento is alive and fitfully thrilling in Argentinian sophomore Luciano Onetti's teasing giallo, which opens with a shocking sequence involving a young girl, a dead bird, a doll, a syringe and a bawling baby brother. Fast forwarding to the present, cops Luis Emilio Rodriguez and Gustavo Dalessanro find themselves on the trail of a serial killer who places coins on the eyes of his victims, along with quotations from Dante's Divine Comedy. However, the clues keep bringing the bemused duo back to the young daughter of Raul Gederlini and Silvina Grippaldi, who disappeared 15 years earlier after her writer father had been paralysed by a knife wound in the back. As it transpires that the deceased have guilty secrets to hide, Rodriguez and Dallessanro get closer to the owner of the telltale red leather gloves. But Onetti (who scripted with his brother Nicolás, as he did on Deep Sleep, 2013) seems as interested in paying homage to the tropes of the 1970s Italian thriller as he is in staging a whodunit. But he is clearly a talent to watch, as, in addition to acting as his own cinematographer, editor and composer (as well as having a key role in the creepy sound design), Onetti also has a mischievous sense of humour, as the post-credits epilogue testifies.