Lorenzo Lombardi
In The Market

INTRODUCTION: For those of you who already know: "In the market." For those of you who will watch: "In the market." For those of you who are not in the least bit interested in: "In the market." For all of you, air, land, and sea cinephiles, know right away that: "In the market" is a movie you will never forget!

SYNOPSIS: David (Marco Martini), Nicole (Elisa Sensi), and Sarah (Rossella Caiani), having finished school, decide to take an aimless journey to find themselves. The only stop: the concert of their favorite band. During their journey, they stop at a gas station and are robbed of everything by a pair of masked thieves. Determined to alert the police, they get back in the car but come across a supermarket and, hungry and without money, decide to hide inside so they can spend the night there eating and resting. However, they do not know that at night the market is visited by the butcher (Ottaviano Blitch)…

MY VIEW OF THE MARKET: Lorenzo Lombardi and his "White rose pictures" (a group of twenty-something cinema enthusiasts) decided to shoot a horror film setting it in a non-place (which, however, should appear to us to be U.S.-styled). The film's story indeed unfolds in what is presumed to be a typically American landscape, where jeeps have a fake Texan license plate stuck to the bumpers, but where the road signs are entirely of Italian matrix. Where supermarkets are indicated as: "Market: open from dawn till dusk," but inside they have Moretti beers flowing and signs reading: "Offertissima!" Where to call the police from a Sip phone booth, you dial 911 (no wonder they don’t answer...is it!). If passion were enough to make great films (or even just decent ones), then these youngsters from San Giustino would have created something unforgettable (in a good way), instead, as written in the introduction, this "In the market" you will never forget, for all the worst reasons that may come to mind. Non-professional actors reminiscent of Renè Ferretti ("Cani maledetti!"), a screenplay from a grotesque comedy gone wrong, rich with slapdash quotes to: "cazzo di cane!" (it always involves dogs), total flatness mode direction, and just sufficient editing.

Sergio Stivaletti, invited on set to handle the special effects (few and predictable), works with his left hand (and he is not left-handed). Ottaviano Blitch, a "well-known" figure in the entertainment world, is unwatchable in his constant "Zoolander" expression, and his endless monologues stuffed with Baricco sprinkle the viewer with the final blow after 60 full minutes of total emptiness. A story rich in nothing and empty of everything, for a film that on its own decisively throws Italian horror into the grave, after a good violating. A sentence for Italian indie directors who, after this abomination, will have to sweat 3457234576512876476125371847562387 shirts to gain a minimum of visibility in our theaters. (As if it was easy before).

The questions that remain are: -How did such a film get distributed in theaters??? -How is it possible to do worse than this??? -Lorenzo Lombardi, why did you do it??? WHY!?!