Lucio Fulci
Non si sevizia un paperino

Here is a film that holds a certain importance in the history of Italian thrillers, as well as being one of Lucio Fulci's most justly famous works. "Don't Torture a Duckling" is primarily an innovative film in its genre, which originally fits into a scene then dominated by high society thrillers like "Orgasmo", the sexy thrillers of the Martino brothers, and especially Dario Argento's "animal trilogy". Secondly, it is a surprisingly rigorous and serious film—a characteristic not exactly expected when talking about the director of "The Beyond"—that does not indulge in excesses of visionarity or gruesomeness, but successfully reconciles the typically detective narrative mechanism with the sick and unsettling atmosphere of the setting.

The unique element of the film is precisely the setting: a backward village in Lucania depicted with almost neorealist modalities, where archaic beliefs and religious fanaticism coexist, and even the police commissioner does not seem entirely immune to local superstitions. When the community is shaken by some terrible child murders, the suspicions of everyone initially converge on the village idiot, then on the mysterious woman (the “maciara,” excellently played by Florinda Bolkan) of a bizarre sorcerer. While the police gropes in the dark, the journalist Tomas Milian and the beautiful lady of the moment Barbara Bouchet investigate on their own and uncover the inevitable scandals.

Rich in socio-anthropological notes on the life of rural communities (one can indeed speak of a "social thriller"), the film poses questions and reflections less trivial than it might first seem. On the obvious opposition between the country's archaic traditions and modernization impulses—both well exemplified by the contrasting characters of Bolkan and Bouchet—a second contrast emerges, more subtle and also more disturbing, between civilizing tendencies and the violent, antisocial urges of the human soul, where the latter seem to continually prevail over the former.

In this sense, it is interesting to note the moral ambiguity of almost all the characters, from Bouchet who amuses herself by shocking a twelve-year-old boy by showing him her naked body (a heavily censored scene that led to the film's denunciation), to the parents of the murdered children who vent their most bestial murderous instincts by fiercely avenging themselves on Bolkan. However, Fulci reaches the height of daring in the depiction of the children, whom the parish priest in the film (and common morality in general) stubbornly considers innocent angels and who instead are shown from the outset smoking, torturing lizards, mocking the poor, and attempting advances with prostitutes.

"Don't Torture a Duckling" is also innovative in the way it builds suspense. In a time when the stylistic elements of Argento's thrillers were already known and overused, Fulci had the brilliant idea of setting murder scenes in broad daylight and using a soundtrack with lyrical and melancholic tones (there is also a song by Ornella Vanoni written specifically for the film by Riz Ortolani) that further accentuates the morbid component of the atmosphere.

More than the display of blood—which is quite contained—it is indeed the construction of a disturbing and timeless atmosphere that matters, where echoes of archaic superstitions and dark curses continuously hover: without, however, yielding to the suggestions of pure horror and fantasy, and on the contrary, building a narrative device that is perhaps among the most plausible and effective in Italian thriller cinema (incidentally, one of the few whose "zoological" title is actually relevant to the plot's content).

Subsequently, Fulci would head in directions different from pure and simple thrillers, favoring those—which are an inexhaustible source of joy for his fans—of splatter, horror, and often trash: without, however, possessing the refinement of Dario Argento or the genius of Mario Bava. It's a pity, because the greatest merit of this beautiful film lies precisely in the uncommon rigor with which it is constructed.