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Rating: The Knight, Death and the Devil is the title chosen by Beppe Cino for the feature film he writes, directs, and produces, drawing inspiration from the novel Traumnovelle (by Arthur Schnitzler) and adapting it to his communicative purposes.
Perhaps, what urged the director to choose the name for his project are the affinities between the plot of the film and the details of the engraving by Albrecht Dürer dating back to 1513 (called - precisely - The Knight, Death and the Devil). Within the engraving, death is depicted wielding an hourglass; the soldier advances in his armor despite the warning.
The setting is modern and urban; the first disturbing element to appear is the mysterious character played by Piero Vida, intent on persistently bothering a young girl walking with her mother. His giggling presence is recurrent.
As a scapegoat, here is the family composed of the fitting Paolo Bonacelli, Mirella D'Angelo, and Lola Ledda. The head of the family, Nicholas, just like Fridolin narrated in Dream Story, goes through a delicate phase with his moral doubts halfway between reality and nightmare. In one scene, we find him fleeing and being harassed by a gang. He is a confused man, but truly confused; torn between the courtship of young Patty (played by the French actress and singer Jeanne Mas) and the nocturnal bewilderment that paints him in an almost bungling manner.
Compared to other adaptations of the book, and the book itself, it is the daughter of the couple who opens and closes the dance, grappling with her nightmare and a brighter role. The vicissitudes, always teetering on the edge of imagination, are the essence of the film at the expense of interior dialogues, but the protagonist's perplexity and torment are present.
The Knight, Death and the Devil is the work through which Beppe Cino takes greater liberties from Schnitzler's novel. One might think that the latter serves as a pretext to indulge in the psychological torment experienced by the family.
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