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Rating: Third film by Dario Argento, characterized by a completely fragmented distribution that prevented its circulation in the VHS and DVD market, almost never broadcast on TV, 'Four Flies on Grey Velvet' (1971) is an important turning point in the career of the then young Roman director.
I will briefly summarize the plot: a rock drummer, followed by a mysterious individual, accidentally kills him following an assault. Someone, however, has photographed the scene, beginning to blackmail the young man. These threats are the first link in a chain of violence and death destined to end tragically, after the discovery of the unsuspected culprit and the reasons that drive him to commit crimes.
Some critical considerations on the film, not to be read if you haven't seen it yet, as they contain spoilers. Like all Argento's films, 'Four Flies on Grey Velvet' has been the subject of repeated critical evaluations highlighting various aspects of the work: overall, the film is not considered among the director's masterpieces, either because of its not always convincing plot development, or because it is marked by less tension than the other films in the same "Animal Trilogy" and filled with unconvincing comic skits, or because it is overshadowed by the author's future production, culminating a few years later with the masterpiece 'Deep Red'. Additionally, the actors are not entirely convincing, except for an excellent Mimsy Farmer, with her ambiguous androgynous charm, and the beautiful characterizations by Jean Pierre Marielle and Stefano Satta Flores. The protagonist Michael Brandon is not very expressive and Bud Spencer and Oreste Lionello, although valid, are out of place.
The mentioned criticisms do not, however, detract from the intrinsic value of the film and its interest for enthusiasts of the Italian giallo: in my opinion, the film is redeemed by the excellent Turin locations, some intricate suspense scenes (murder in the park, murder in the metro bathrooms, unveiling of the "flies", final slow-motion) and a subject that, as a whole, is much more original than other stories staged by Argento.
In 'Four Flies on Grey Velvet', in fact, the protagonist is not an impromptu detective driven by personal curiosity, or the need to piece together a perceived and lost fragment of truth (like the archetype Sam Dalmas from "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage", the enigma solver Arnò from "The Cat o' Nine Tails" and even Marc Daly from "Deep Red"), but is himself a victim cornered by events, driven to act to uncover the plot of the mysterious killer and to save his own life. In this perspective, he therefore acts in an almost feral "state of necessity", capable of violence almost akin to that of his enemy. In this film, the police are almost entirely absent, and the role of detective falls to secondary characters such as the private investigator Arrosio and the tramp Diomede.
In 'Four Flies', therefore, we witness the first embryonic assimilation of victim and perpetrator, divided by a thin line that can be inadvertently crossed by anyone at any time. The same protagonist appears, in this respect, characterized by a fundamental moral ambiguity: his artistic temperament, his individualism, his selfishness, oppose him to his wife; he is inclined to betray his spouse without apparent remorse; he is capable of violence, even if only to defend himself, and in any case, he is accustomed to deceit. All of this intersects with a fundamentally immature personality, which needs the support of adult characters (the tramp Diomede above all) to disentangle himself from his problems.
The protagonist reveals his weakness even in the final duel with his enemy: the challenge resolves in his favor only due to a fortuitous chance, and the death of the "villain" of the day occurs not due to his direct or indirect intervention, but due to a causal series completely independent of his actions, originated by chance, and, practically, by the need to conclude the film in a spectacular manner. Even in this instance, in any case, he fully reveals himself as unsuited to playing an active role in the film's plot, and by extension, in his own life.
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