Zu Quirke
Nocturne

Recently available on Prime Video, the plot of Nocturne, certainly familiar, revolves around a young woman who makes a deal with the devil to achieve her goals. The protagonist is Juliet, a seventeen-year-old musician studying piano at an art academy, and her rival is her almost-twin sister, Vivian, born just a few hours apart. Vivian is also a pianist, but more talented, extroverted, and popular than her sister.

In the first scene of the film, a girl commits suicide by jumping out of a window: she was one of the top students at the academy and was supposed to perform as a soloist at the end-of-year concert. Now, because of her death, auditions for the concert are open again: Vivian is the favorite, but Juliet decides to try her luck by performing the same piece her sister did. After this move, their relationship becomes strained, but Juliet seems to become progressively better and more confident, overshadowing her sister. The secret of her success is a little notebook that belonged to the deceased student, containing disturbing writings and drawings that seem to foreshadow what happens to Juliet…

Nocturne is not the first film about deals with the devil, a concept already quite deliberately ambiguous: the devil is not there, or rather, takes the form of a yellow light that permeates the atmosphere during moments of high tension, but sometimes it's the result of a dream, other times an hallucination, or it is the physical light emitted by the emergency exit sign: in all cases, anyway, it is placed in a context of anxiety and agitation, which Juliet has been suffering from for years, and for which she takes daily medication, but it worsens along with the strained relationship with her sister and the unfolding events.

But much more important than the ambiguity inherent in the representation of the supernatural element is the fact that Nocturne is just the latest in a long line of films portraying female competition in a horrific key, as if it were an evil that inevitably leads to madness, evil, and moral decline. It's no coincidence that the story revolves around two teenage sisters and not two brothers – an argument extendable to the vast majority of horror films, we know that women and the devil are thick as thieves – and that both are equally pretty and attractive girls but represented according to two opposite clichés: one uninhibited and popular, the other shy and solitary. And, of course, the different characterization results in a sexual demarcation: if the first is sexually promiscuous, the second is a virgin, has never had a boyfriend, has never been kissed. Naturally, according to the narrative line, it is the latter who harbors jealousy and resentment towards her sister, and this translates into her consequent decision to annihilate her. In this regard, the scene is significant where Juliet has sex with Max and, unexpectedly, takes on an active role, but it's represented according to demonic possession tropes: Max runs away, saying 'it wasn't a good idea.' The loss of virginity is thus depicted as another stage of her descent into the inferno.

Juliet is portrayed as a prisoner of two opposite extremes, good and naive at first, monstrous and diabolical later, as if there were no middle ground between not standing up for oneself and being a heartless bitch who only thinks of her own interests, indeed, as if wielding one's weapons to get something necessarily corresponds to taking the first step on a path toward the depths of evil. Thus, poor Juliet becomes a victim of her desire for revenge and automatically transforms into a monster, who destroys her sister's career, steals her boyfriend, has a professor expelled, and so on…All actions that are then very little diabolic and are either accidental or largely understandable without resorting to black magic. But despite this, in the film's dynamics, Juliet has embarked on the path of evil, and there is no positive ending awaiting her at the finish line.

Though I hoped: that she would truly unleash Hell – as her teacher says in a good luck manner – that she would shake off the anxiety, the fear of making mistakes, and being destined for a life of a loser, as her sister's words suggested. That the deal with the devil, in the end, would be a big middle finger raised against those who didn't believe in her.

But no, Nocturne does nothing of the sort, it remains bound to a stereotypical and conventional narrative, transferring an already-seen story of female competition from the world of dance and fashion to that of classical music, which certainly lends itself well to creating an evocative setting, but the changes stop there. Nocturne is a well-shot and well-acted film that for most may be an enjoyable viewing that brings no new innovation to the genre, rather it resurrects dynamics already seen in famous films with which it doesn't have the potential to compete, but for me the lack of novelty takes on a negative connotation, because it contributes to legitimizing female stereotypes that the film industry has more or less consciously always fueled.