Augusto Caminito
Nosferatu a Venezia

In the whirlwind of substitute math teachers that characterized my second year of high school, I remember one in particular who every Monday would tell us that in addition to the thirteens, the football pools should also reward the zeroes. I don't know how correct that statement was from the perspective of statistical sciences, considering that the same substitute also claimed that the twenty-fourth root of twenty-four was precisely one... However, the gist of the message was quite clear: it's truly difficult to get everything wrong, absolutely everything!

This is the reason why, in this winter that saw the return to cinema, and to the collective imagination, of the figure of Nosferatu, I can't help but dedicate a somewhat affectionate thought to that complete homegrown disaster titled "Nosferatu in Venice." Back then, I almost went to see it in the cinema, pushed by a friend who was so in love with the lagoon city that she bought the album of "Anonimo Veneziano," mistaking it for a title by the Rondò Veneziano. Fortunately, the film never made it to the theaters in my city, but by then my curiosity had been piqued, and over time I found a way to see this rather embarrassing chapter of Italian cinema (for free, of course).

Let's be clear: all the mistakes are to be blamed on the execution bordering on the most culpable amateurishness of a project that, at least on paper, could have worked. The story told, in itself, could be interesting: obsessed by a series of legends weighing down on her house and the presence of a sealed sarcophagus in its basements, Countess Helietta (Barbara De Rossi) invites Professor Catalano (Christopher Plummer), an expert on vampirism, who, to shed light, proposes a seance; the only effect achieved is to awaken and call Nosferatu back to Venice, meanwhile sporting a flowing mane and who will sow death among the family members. The setting could have turned out to be a winning card: not only had the gothic potential of Venice already been extensively illustrated by a masterpiece like "Don’t Look Now" (here known as "A Venezia un Dicembre Rosso Shocking") and by an immensely minor episode like "Nero Veneziano" (or, as Renato Cestiè couldn’t catch a break even as a teenager), but the entire lagoon and its salt marshes could have played an active role in the construction of horror, as demonstrated by Pupi Avati and his Po valley horror.

In the hands of Augusto Caminito, however, it all ends up deflating like a half-baked soufflé. Caminito, a producer, had to improvise as a director due to the uncontrollable character of the lead actor, Klaus Kinski, who was intolerant of the two directors initially assigned to the project (Maurizio Lucidi and Pasquale Squitieri). And it's exactly here that the drama begins: terribly static scenes, actors visibly left to their own devices, Venetian carnival masks suddenly turning toward the camera as in a Tourism Promotion Agency video, ultra-close-ups of the vampire's incisors as they pierce the victims' necks (without seeing the rest of the face), ridiculous choices in the screenplay phase (Professor Catalano, after leaving the haunted house, suddenly decides to kill himself by jumping into a "rio" – whose depth could at most have sprained his ankle). If you then add a soundtrack that wants to echo Vangelis' style but seems produced with a Bontempi keyboard...

It’s a context in which, naturally, even the best ideas end up wasted: Venice, the lagoon, the alleys are well photographed by Antonio Nardi (one sequence above all: Nosferatu arrives at the palace along the canals standing on a gondola; the scene is reconstructed in the studio in front of a projected backdrop, but the final effect, leaden and sinister, is almost surprising). However, the only use made of all this goodness is to have various characters walk or run through it. The character of the countess's decrepit grandmother (a terrifying Maria Clementina Quasimodo) could have been a key element of the film; instead, it's unclear why she’s there (just as it’s unclear why the priest accompanying her, played by a wasted Donald Pleasance, is dressed in an 18th-century cassock). Even the scene of the sarcophagus opening, with the theme of the double and the idea of reincarnation it entails, could have had a much more devastating impact, while it passes by innocuous and ridiculous.

Klaus Kinski, in turn, contributes his share, bringing his maniacal sexual appetite to the set (Barbara De Rossi felt so violated that she left a scene in tears) and imposing mere whims, among which the inexplicable choice of recruiting his current favorite, a young and rather bland Anne Knecht, in the pointless role of the protagonist’s sister, a completely redundant character on which the ramshackle finale is built.

So why talk about this film? Would one recommend watching it? In the end, I feel like saying yes, partly because Venice is always Venice, and some of the sequences manage to show it to us in such a winter light as to make it almost unusual. Moreover, Klaus Kinski's face remains a heritage of humanity, managing to condense an infinity of nuances with truly unique awareness and command of mimicry. There's also a scene that has always deeply fascinated me: Maria Canins (the aforementioned Anne Knecht), a scantily clad sacrificial virgin, throws herself from the bell tower of San Marco, sure that Nosferatu will respond to her gesture; the vampire arrives in a flash, kidnapping the object of desire and flying it over the lagoon in a dreamlike and captivating sequence that dramatically shows what the real potential of the film could have been.

And, deep down, it is precisely for this idea of a missed opportunity that one can become fond of "Nosferatu in Venice," and feel attracted even by the most blatant of failures. If only to feel a bit of nostalgia for our genre cinema and for an era when pedestrian one-way streets and entrance fees to Venice hadn't yet touched our nightmares.