The Possessed (1965)

The Possessed (La donna del lago) is included in Arrow’s Giallo Essentials Red Blu-Ray boxed set. It’s supposed to be a proto-giallo and I generally enjoy proto-giallos (or proto-gialli) even more than fullblown giallos. Whether this movie really qualifies for such a label remains to be seen.

A writer named Bernard (Peter Baldwin) has just broken up with his girlfriend. He arrives at the lakeside hotel owned by Mr Enrico. Bernard spent a lot of time there as a boy and he was there a year ago as well. He tells himself he just wants to relax and get some work done on his new novel. He isn’t even fooling himself. He has come to see Tilde.

Tilde is a maid at the hotel. We assume that she and Bernard had a love affair the previous year and that Bernard wants to rekindle the romance.

Those hopes are soon dashed. Tilde is dead. She committed suicide.

Bernard’s photographer pal Francesco suggests to Bernard that perhaps there was more to Tilde’s death.

At this point you expect Bernard to stay playing amateur detective but he does so in a very halfhearted manner. In fact he does everything in a very halfhearted manner. He does pick up a few possible clues. It does seem possible that Tilde was murdered.

We get a few flashbacks but it’s not always clear if certain scenes really happened or are really happening or are happening purely in Bernard’s mind.

The atmosphere at the hotel is uneasy. The marriage of Mr Enrico’s son Mario (Philippe Leroy) to Adriana (Pia Lindström) seems unhappy. Mr Enrico’s daughter Irma (Valentina Cortese) seems tense. Mr Enrico seems troubled.

There are people who seem to be trying to lead Bernard to the truth and others determined to do the exact opposite.

Interestingly we never find out exactly what went on between Bernard and Tilde. At first we assume they were lovers but later we come to doubt that. Perhaps it was just an obsession on Bernard’s part. We have to consider the possibility that they never actually met, although it appears that he had been spying on her. Everything he thinks he knows about her may be misinterpretations on his part. He’s a writer. He lives in a world of imagination. Of course there’s also the possibility they really were lovers.

The extraordinary ambiguity of his obsession with Tilde is by far the best thing about this movie.

This movie is not a giallo. It’s not a proto-giallo. It has no connection whatsoever with the giallo genre. The visual style is the polar opposite of giallo visual style. It’s in black-and-white and I personally do not believe a black-and-white movie can be a giallo. The visuals are moody, sombre, low-key. There’s none of the characteristic giallo flamboyance. It’s not even film noir. The Possessed has more of the feel of a Bergman movie.

There’s no glamour. No sexiness. No hints of decadence. There are none of the identifying features of the proto-giallo.

This is an art film. As a thriller it doesn’t really work. It lacks actual thrills. It lacks action, it lacks suspense and the murder mystery elements are predictable.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad movie. It’s not without interest as a psychological study, as a meditation on memory (and the unreliability of memory) and the blurring of the line between imagination and reality. It just isn’t even remotely a giallo and it isn’t the slightest bit giallo-esque. Not only is it not a giallo. It’s almost an anti-giallo - the absolute antithesis of everything that defines the giallo. Of course co-directors Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rossellini were not trying to make a giallo since the giallo did not exist as a distinct entity in 1965. They were presumably trying to make an art movie.

Labelling it as a giallo was probably the only way to make a Blu-Ray release commercially viable. The Blu-Ray transfer looks pretty decent. There are some extras as well.

The Possessed is a moderately interesting art/crime film. Worth a look if you’re going to buy the boxed set anyway.

Luigi Bazzoni would later make an actual giallo, the extremely good The Fifth Cord (1971). Which just happens to also be included in the same Arrow Blu-Ray boxed set.