Pupi Avati
La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono

1975: Pupi comes from a flop—and what a flop. Aided by his band of daredevils, Antonio Avati, his brother, Maurizio Costanzo, Gianni Cavina, and a young Christian De Sica, he directed BORDELLA, an obscene film that didn't pass the censorship hurdle.

As if that wasn't enough, Pupi and his team were also summoned to court and prosecuted by the Latina Prosecutor's Office. Our man relies on the mythical lawyer Pipariello…Lawyer, will we make it? …Certainly, I know everyone in Latina, I've already got champagne in the car to celebrate…

They were all convicted.

And now, what to do? Pupi is flat broke and, to climb back up, he plays the "recovery film" card. A recovery film is a film to start afresh, and it's always on a shoestring budget, pared down to the bone. At the time, a recovery film was made with 160 million, he manages with 150. He's the director (and that's it, thank goodness) and then there's the crew, consisting of just 12 interchangeable people. The driver is also a sound engineer, his brother improvises as a set designer (he's the one painting the laughing mouths on the windows of a ruin) the prop man is also the scene photographer... He writes the story and screenplay with his brother, Maurizio Costanzo, and Gianni Cavina, and chooses as the lead the brilliant, underrated but not by him, Lino Capolicchio.

Let's make a horror movie! We're in '76, the (sub)genre is hot, …Let's give it a try!

Of course, he has no idea that he's creating a film that will set standards, a cult film, it will be his most quoted and remembered work, even today, after 48 years. Some will even say that The House with Laughing Windows (an amazing title, you'll agree) inaugurates a new genre: the Po Valley Gothic horror. I don't know what it inaugurated, but I know that, for its atmospheres, for the people who know while he doesn't, we find ourselves in a nightmare scenario typical of "The Tenant," "Twin Peaks," "The Wicker Man," and excuse me if that's not enough.

Shot between Veneto and Emilia Romagna, between fresh and saltwater, between Comacchio and Guastalla, The House with Laughing Windows tells the story of Stefano, a young talented restorer, who is called to this village to restore a fresco located in a church. The author is Buono Legnani, the painter of agony, depicting martyrs at the point of death, while they're being tortured, butchered, killed. Legnani is dead, he set himself on fire, he was poor crazy, but his body was never found and his two sisters, whom he lived with and—it's said—committed incest with, disappeared.

You old rogues must have all seen it, I suppose. Those who haven't watched it, remedy that.

It is indeed a unique, original, unhealthy, morbid, disturbing film. Right from the start, it's clear that we're getting involved in a bad business, Pupi needs just a shot, a sound counterpoint, a zoom-in, to make you understand that you need to be on your toes. Stefano obviously is not on his toes, quite the opposite, the more he discovers a new piece of Legnani's mosaic, about the fresco, and the sisters (trust me), the more he gets involved and is absolutely determined to go all the way, all the way like a butcher's knife blade into the ribcage, for instance. The film never lets you go, there's no time to laugh, zero relaxing moments, except for when Stefano makes love with the young school teacher Francesca, Francesca Marciano, but even in these sequences the air is suffocating, zero relaxation.

The actors are in a state of grace, directed by a top-notch director, it's like soccer, if the coach is strong, the player performs better. Lino, with his determination and calmness, Cavina the drunk who knows, the friend with glasses who downs pills and investigates like crazy, is seen little but leaves a mark, Giulio Pizzirani, Lidio the altar boy, a top-notch psycho, Pietro Brambilla, nephew of Ugo Tognazzi. And then there's the Carabinieri marshal, the dwarf, the nymphomaniac, the priest. And that's enough since with 150 million it's tough.

And then there are the last ten minutes, where horror and madness explode to unimaginable levels, ten minutes of horror cinema to be framed, a crescendo of terror, harrowing, ranting, come… come and see, we've kept him here…

Pupi Avati, why throughout your long career, have you frequently dabbled in genre films? Horror, fantasy, period films…

Moretti, does Moretti, Guadagnino, Gianni Amelio, Veronesi, and so on… they don't make genre films, they make films about themselves… The genre film instead imposes rules, only when you make a genre film, you truly do cinema.

Sergio Leone, who even reinvented a genre, imposing new canons and launching a new genre, although to this day classic and immortal, I think would agree.

Lidio, that spy, is gone, now I have to do everything alone… ooooooh oooh ooooh oooooh….