Luigi Zampa
Il mostro

I have always been struck by an old reflection by Dario Argento on the Italian thriller, and the reasons why the genre exploded especially in the '70s, with vast public success, replacing the spaghetti westerns that were so fashionable in the previous decade: according to the Roman director, one of the reasons these films were so well received was that they took violence to a paroxysmal level, ultimately exorcising it, in a historical-social context where it was a daily occurrence. In Argento's perspective, the grand guignol of a "Profondo Rosso" ended up being a diversion from the blood running in the streets, initiated by various "left" or "right" groups.

I wonder how this excellent and forgotten film, by a (great) craftsman of Italian comedy, can be interpreted from the viewpoint assumed by the Master of thriller: if only because Luigi Zampa was the (natural) uncle of that Renato Curcio pointed out as the main leader and ideologue of the BR, a mature man who in the autumn of his life found himself immersed in a country torn by violence, far from the boom-era Italy that he, the same director, had politely portrayed, albeit with biting irony, in small masterpieces like "Il Vigile", and who was probably affected by this violence also intimately.

I wonder if Zampa had, even unknowingly, the doubt that the violence of the '70s was, in part, also the fathers' (or previous generations') fault, unable to resolve the latent conflicts in Italian society, whether on a social, political, or economic level.

This long initial digression should not seem misleading to Debaser readers: I indeed believe that the father/son relationship, and generally a broader reflection on the origins of violence, is the authentic key to reading "Il Mostro" (1977), excellently performed by Johnny Dorelli in the best cinematic performance of his career, before the recent "Ma quando arrivano le ragazze?" by Avati and by a good cast of character actors (Angelo Orlando, Renzo Palmer), among whom also stands out a fascinating Sidney Rome.

The feature film that tells of the professional rise of a second-rate journalist (reduced to managing, under a pseudonym, a column for broken hearts), catapulted "into the center of the news" when a mysterious serial killer chooses him as a privileged interlocutor and narrator of his murderous deeds.

The rise of Our Hero, who, thanks to his scoops, became a leading name in the city's main newspaper, is indeed marked by a terrible relationship with his shy and complexed son, who initially suffered his father's frustrations, and the journalist's inability to emerge in his profession, only to be subsequently set aside by his father when the Monster's atrocities trigger a turn in the protagonist's career.

The mystery plot thus appears, from this perspective, as a sort of pretext to represent the fragmentation of affections in late '70s society, the intimate pain that almost counterbalances the proclaimed and inextinguishable violence of society: the journalist has a ruined family, being divorced from the first wife and mother of the boy, he is unable to understand his son's anxieties and sadness—basically abandoned—and as soon as he achieves a modicum of success (stemming from others' tragedies and the Monster's deeds), he tends to rid himself of the boy, filling him with material wealth but depriving him of the affection required, aiming to start anew with a young and fascinating local starlet.

In this, he is a champion of cynicism and opportunism, almost a tragic mask of the individual indifferent to the world's affairs, except where they can reflect favorably on him, ensuring his social and economic ascent. Ultimately, he is perhaps the true Monster to which the film's title ambiguously alludes, responsible not only for his own unhappiness and ruin but also for that of his son and family.

Translated to a broader level, the film's message seems almost an attribution of complicity to the fathers' generation for the children's violence, symbolized by the film's tragic and chilling finale.