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Rating: Imagine a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the middle of summer, the city deserted, like the Rome described by Nanni Moretti in "Caro Diario". Imagine feeling down, being alone, and caught in that spleen so well described by Conte/Pallavicini in "Azzurro", and not wanting to enjoy what is often considered the most beautiful season of the year.
Sleeping and napping wouldn't be worthwhile: your gloomy thoughts would reach you in the twilight, the heat would grip your neck, and you'd have to futilely manipulate your air conditioner in search of artificial coolness. Reading even less: serious readings, like the classics, would tire you out; light readings (like the thrillers easily found at the newsstand) you've done for a lifetime, and they too tire the eyes. Listening to music would be a good solution: but if you're reading me, and thus are Debaser readers, you probably have such varied and refined tastes that you know well that even listening to music requires discipline and attention, and this too tires you; it touches your soul, and sometimes increases your discomfort rather than relieving it. The point is that on this Saturday or Sunday afternoon, there is a cosmic void, never have you felt closer to Nothingness, to Antimatter. You'd like to be Elsewhere, but even Elsewhere you would be there with yourself, with your load of burdens, as Seneca would warn you.
The solution could then be at hand, or rather, at the remote: start zapping, letting yourself be swept away by the flashes of the plasma obelisk like a new David Bowman in his personal Odyssey, to finally arrive in a room furnished with artificial Enlightenment taste, designed to put you at ease.
Well, in this room you might find, as happened to me a few years ago, a TV broadcasting "Delitti e Profumi", a charming '80s thriller with an excellent Jerry Calà and an Umberto Smaila at his best, in the overused role of the duo made up of an impromptu detective and a scruffy cop, both searching for the serial killer of three beautiful girls, burned alive thanks to a malevolent perfume that ignites their bodies as soon as they are exposed to a slightly intense light (lamp, car headlights, etc.). The killer, as always, hides among the unsuspected, and the search for the truth, amidst jokes and quips, could reveal some bitterness, exposing, as usual, the cruelty of the fake good guys, and above all, the grudges of childhood.
Unpretentious, except for the aim of entertaining and amusing with a touch of tension and fear, the film flows smoothly (occasionally overlooking the performances of Lucrezia Lante della Rovere, Eva Grimaldi, Nina Sodano, etc.), sometimes naive, without masquerading behind false intellectual pretenses, supported by a craftsmanlike and professional direction, and the natural charm of the protagonists, typical '80s model playboys.
At the end of this journey, your anxieties will come back to visit you, they will probably be beside you, but you can't help but thank the producers, authors, director, and actors of "Delitti e Profumi" for giving you, without asking too much in return, about ninety minutes of natural oblivion.
P.S.: a friend, to whom I ideally dedicate this review, was as a kid a witness to part of the filming, held at a shopping center in Castelfranco Veneto - an anonymous town in the Venetian plain - with a Jerry Calà in great rapport with the audience, especially the younger ones. Many don't like him, but I think Jerry is "the real deal"; when one day I meet him during one of my outings in Verona - I know it will happen - I can only thank him for the fun given to me during my childhood, luckily better than that of the killer in "Delitti e Profumi". Indeed, if you see him first, do it for me.
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