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Rating: Simple, direct, and permeated by a perpetual sad and melancholic atmosphere, the Italian thriller/noir "La ragazza del lago", the debut film of director Andrea Molaioli, fulfilled my Sunday evening, a result of an endless series of broken plans by my friends, evidently unwilling to leave their warm dens.
Set in Friuli, this film, based on the novel by Norwegian writer Karim Fossum (Lo sguardo di uno sconosciuto), has a plot that clearly recalls Lynch's "Twin Peaks". A young and beautiful girl is found dead, lying supine, on the shore of a lake. The murder takes place, as in Twin Peaks, in a quiet and remote town (in this case, we are in a peaceful and reserved community in the North-East), where apparently there are no secrets. A sad, cold, and grumpy Neapolitan commissioner, who moved to Udine for family reasons, begins the investigation in the town...
Everything obviously revolves around the emblematic figure of the commissioner (an intense Toni Servillo) who, with total calm, begins to delve beneath the veneer of routine and normality that covers a deeply closed and distrustful town, which is hinted at being affected by the terrible earthquake of 1976. To best convey the melancholy of the population, the director uses photography (the scene of the lake discovery is beautiful), the gloomy mountainous landscapes, the use of faded colors (gray and green dominate), and essential yet engaging dialogues.
The search for the killer and the seemingly inexplicable motive is intertwined with the description of the commissioner's family life. Sanzio (this is his name) is an introverted person who cannot (or does not want to) express the perpetual pain that oppresses him: his sick wife is progressively losing her memory, and his teenage daughter struggles to accept the situation. The film, like a tennis match, shifts from the investigation to the family drama: the commissioner is the only link. Slowly all the secrets of the main characters (a disabled father and his mentally challenged son, a divorced couple due to the death of their child, the victim's boyfriend, etc.) are revealed, leading to the natural conclusion.
It is a simple noir (like the review), deliberately devoid of twists or high-tension moments. Nevertheless, it flows and is pleasing for its simplicity and how well it is crafted. The pronounced personality of the characters is undoubtedly the added value of the film, and beyond Servillo's superb performance, who perfectly embodies the challenging role, Antoniutti (the disabled father) and Golino (the mother of a child with a handicap who died in a tragic event) also deliver performances of great intensity.
A good Italian film.
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