Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970)'s comments

Do you want to let us know what you think? Just login, after which you will be redirected back here and you can leave your comments.

Siskoid

Elio Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion name-checks Kafka at the end, but it's really a reverse Kafka - not the absurd plight of the person on trial, but the absurd power of the person putting others on trial. Gian Maria Volonté plays an obnoxious police chief who, Columbo-style, kills his lover in the opening sequence and then spends the rest of the film vacillating between "you'll never catch me" and "please catch me already you fools". The idea of police (and other people with power) being above the law certain resonates with our age, and Volonté makes a speech at some point explaining what role the police plays in society, and it's one of the most instructive, insightful things I've heard about the state of affairs some of us are finding themselves in re: law enforcement. As an unnameable once said, a person with power could walk down Main Street and shoot someone in plain sight and not get arrested. I think they proved it since. This film was a big fat warning, more truth than satire at this point. Most interestingly, when we flash back to the relationship between killer and victim, she gets off on his capacity to abuse his power, a good representation of those who would turn a blind eye to these abuses in the name of the status quo. Ennio Morricone's score for this one sounds like it was played on a badly tuned instrument - it knows something is dreadfully wrong with the world.

3 years ago