Amer
In the ’30s and ’40s, the crime and detective fiction found in the American pulps gave rise to Hollywood’s golden era of film noir.
Similarly, the Italian crime fiction of the ’60s, lurid, highly eroticized thrillers published as cheap paperbacks with trademark yellow, or giallo, covers, influenced their own generation of films filled with lush color palettes, voyeurism, and elaborate murder sequences.
Now, co-directors Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet have crafted a stylishly-sensual tribute to the Italian giallo crime-thriller genre with their feature debut.
Divided into three distinct parts, the film focuses on the defining moments in its heroine Ana’s life: the death of her grandfather when she was a child, a fateful shopping trip with her mother during adolescence, and an adult Ana returning home in order to repair her parent’s decrepit estate for sale.
Employing nearly every story trope, visual cue, and, in some instances, even vintage musical scores lifted directly from previous giallo films, Forzani and Cattet create a feverishly oneiric thriller that rises above mere homage to possess an ethereal allure all its own. - Seattle Internantional Film Festival.