With its combination of horrific murder, sordid secrets and dark romance, this very rare 1973 movie, directed by the brilliant Aldo Lado, is pure Gothic Fiction transferred to the screen. Believed to have originated with Horace Walpole's 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto, the Gothic Fiction genre was characterized by its penchant for death, decay and a quest for mysterious atmospherics, with such recurring elements as mysterious castles, sinister ruins, terrible secrets, hereditary insanity, curses, monks, nuns and, of course, tyrannic villains and the ever present persecuted maidens. Lado's film is a beautiful distillation of many of these traits.
France, 1780. Close to the village of Dinan one finds the castle of Coetquen, where the young Count Philippe (Fred Robsahm) has just married the beautiful Christine (Agostina Belli), daughter of a poor fisherman from the west. Despite her humble origins, Christine is soon beloved by the local population and aristocrats alike, and has become particularly close to the Duchess Dominique de Matignan (Dominique Darel). Philippe's two younger brothers, Ferdinand (Maurizio Bonuglia) and Gaël (Francis Perrin), however, resent the marriage, even more so when Christine becomes pregnant, for they realize that the child will be the sole heir to the Coetquen estate. One day, with Philippe away from the castle, the brothers set into motion a terrible scheme. With the help of an accomplice, Morel (José Quaglio), who is pressed into their service by either blackmail and/or the promise of wealth and position for him and his lovely daughter, Odette (Monica Monet); they manage to poison the unsuspecting Christine. (There is some doubt here concerning the character Morel's position and reward, as the only version I have available is an Italian language print with no subtitles. As such, some of the details were difficult to grasp, so there may be some minor discrepancies). Christine's body is discovered in the morning and she is pronounced dead by the doctor. The mourners gathered around the body are unaware that Ferdinand managed to slip the poisoned goblet into his tunic, thus erasing all evidence of the foul deed. But the cruelty of the two brothers has no end. After the villagers have paid their respects to Christine's body, laid out in the castle chapel, Ferdinand and Gaël sneak inside and remove the girl's body from her coffin. It appears that the poison was not meant to kill her, only induce a state resembling death. With the help of Morel, the brothers smuggle the still unconscious girl out of the castle and lock her in a forgotten cell, deep down in the bowels of the ruined tower/watermill that stands on the other side of the river, overlooking the waterfalls. There, with only a high, barred window for light, she is to be 'buried alive.'
To everyones knowledge, Christine is 'buried' in the mourning and Philippe, on his way back to the castle, unaware of the fate that has befallen his beloved, is waylaid by some vicious robbers, paid to kill him by Ferdinand. Their attempt fails, however, only for him to arrive at the castle to be greeted with signs of mourning. Philippe is told off his wife's death and, as time slowly progresses, falls more and more into a deep despair, gradually leaving the daily business of running the castle to his younger brothers. Meanwhile, alone in her sparsely furnished cell, Christine is kept alive by the food delivered through a hole in the door by a doubting Morel. Finally, unable to bear his suffering any longer, a devastated Philippe rides off into the windswept night, leaving a letter for his brothers, indicating that he is going to take his own life, and thus leaving the estate to them. However, Philippe makes his way to a monastery and takes refuge there.
Meanwhile the guilt-ridden Gaël has taken his own life while, at the castle, Ferdinand's behaviour becomes increasingly more sordid and vicious, reveling in orgiastic parties, rape and ultimately more murder, until his unhinged mind ultimately spirals down in total madness. Christine, having given birth to a healthy son, convinces the young village boy to take her child, wrapped in a blanket with a precious necklace, and leave it on the doorstep of the monastery. Philippe, now one of the monks, recognizes the gems and realizes that his beloved may still be alive.
In a suitably rousing finale, a vengeful Philippe rushes to the ancestral castle where Ferdinand, now going completely round the bend at the news of Gaël's death, is haunted by visions of his misdeed and the ghostly appearances of the victims of his greed. Now intent on murdering Christine, he rushes to the tower, blade in hand, but finds himself unable to break down the locked door. While a frightened Christine cowers inside, Ferdinand unlocks a mechanism of the mill and the prison cell slowly starts to flood with water from the river. There is an extended swashbuckling fight between the two brothers, taking them from the fog-shrouded battlements of the castle, through the cluttered corridors and rooms, to the ruined tower, where Philippe punishes the vile Ferdinand's ultimate treachery with a deft thrust of his blade, having refrained from killing his younger sibling earlier during the fight. Christine is saved in time from the flooding room and reunited with her wounded but alive husband.
Aldo Lado's story plays out against a backdrop of gorgeous locations with a marvelous real medieval castle with a clutter of courtyards, lush gardens, cavernous hallways and sombre rooms, surrounded by acres of sloping grounds; the ruined tower/watermill perched beside the stunning waterfalls (Cascate di Monte Gelato, a recurring location in Italian genre movies); a lake and the dense forest with its rocky slopes and carved outcrops. The forest is used in some lovely sequences, with dawning sunlight filtering through the fog-shrouded trees. During the course of the film, these settings are mostly represented in bright, beautiful sunlight, but, as the story progresses and the greedy schemes spiral down into debauchery and murder, the tone of the film also gradually darkens.
There is good evocation of the daily life in the 18th century, with an abundance of interesting visual details such as the sweaty blacksmiths at work, weavers sitting amid a cloud of wool or the doctor's examination of Christine's body, using a mirror to check for breath. In tune with the subject matter, the approach is somewhat more melodramatic than, for example, Juan Bunuel's more naturalistic tale of vampirism, Leonor (1975), to which this movie shares a certain resemblance in mood. In an aside, Leonor also shares a somewhat similar curtained wooden bathtub.
In Sepolta Viva, the bathtub is used for some glimpses of nudity of the lovely Agostina Belli, shown as she slips out of her clothes to be bathed by some servant girls, awarding us with some nice views of her ass and breasts. There is certainly no lack of nudity in the film: Belli again shows off her considerable assets in a bout of lovemaking with Philippe and later, locked up in the tower, through her shredded nightgown. Furthermore, there is the occasional rape and orgiastic party.
In tune with the darkly romantic tone of Gothic Fiction, the film contains some wonderfully sleazy moments, not the least a sordidly necrophiliac sequence during which Ferdinand sneaks into the chapel, opens Christine's coffin and with a lecherous expression playing on his features, slips his hand underneath her shroud to fondle her breasts, shots that are paralleled with his memories of an old hag concocting the poison used on the girl.
Aldo Lado's eye for detail becomes especially apparent in a stunning, and quite sordid, sequence at the convent. After Christine's 'death', Dominique de Matignan has renounced her worldly life to become a nun, and there are some gorgeous shots as she is introduced at the convent during prayers, a collection of detailed images of crosses, fingers handling prayer beads, lips moving in prayer, culminating in a candlelit procession of the nuns around the pillared courtyard galleries, their white habits beautifully contrasted with the shadowy convent surroundings. Meanwhile, Gaël, troubled with guilt and in love with Dominique for a very long time, sneaks onto the convent grounds and eventually into the nun's room. Through a partially opened doorway, Gaël watches her undress, her breasts taped tight to her body with white cloth. As she tries to ward off his feverish advances, Gaël slices open the enveloping cloth with a dagger, revealing the nun's breasts. With the other nuns gathered outside the locked door, alarmed by Dominique's screams, Gaël roughly rapes her, taking her from behind, before ultimately stabbing her to death. His passion spent, the insane Gaël then slashes his own throat with the bloodstained dagger, while still lying on top of the dead nun.
As the tale progresses, Ferdinand's ways become more and more debauched. There is a visually lovely sequence, introduced with a coach rattling to a halt at the castle gate and a servant guiding the visitors inside, carrying a lantern, across a candle-lit courtyard, and into a spacious room with musicians hidden (and outlined) behind a screen. What appears to be a mere musical evening at the castle, soon turns into a seedy and lecherous orgiastic feast, with the blindfolded guests groping and undressing one another while a drunken Ferdinand looks on. The drunken and erotic revelry at the castle is nicely offset and intercut with the sequence of Christine giving birth in the windswept tower across the river. Christine's loneliness and agony are shown by Lado in loving close-up shots, her mouth in pain, teeth clenched, hands clasping around an iron bar and her eyes wide open ... all marvelously contrasted with the barrage of grasping hands, lecherous pawings and undraped bodies at the ever more frivolous orgy in the castle.
But there seems to be no end to Ferdinand's evil. Bored by the sexual escapades played out before him, he wanders the castle corridors in a drunken haze, coming upon lovely Odette's bedroom. Peering through the doorway, he sees the girl asleep, one long bared leg sticking from underneath the white sheets. He softly sits down on the bed and slips his hand down the sleeping girl's nightgown. Awakened by his impertinent gestures, Odette tries to fight off the advances of her drunken Lord, but the struggle soon turns to rape as Ferdinand starts ripping off her clothes. When Odette's father tries to intervene, he is stabbed in the back for his troubles.
Although Lado's film contains various sordid and sleazy elements, the actual horror aspect are minimal. There is however, one wonderfully atmospheric sequence during which Christine is poisoned. As a storm rages outside, rain beating down and lightning flashing, we see the young woman sitting at the shrine in her bedroom, as a mysterious character peers through the window. Behind Christine's back, the shadowy figure sneaks into the room through the balcony door, and a gloved hand is seen slipping the poison into her drink. The candlelit room is beautifully appointed with its crooked arches, a huge fireplace, the sumptuous four-poster bed and Lado makes good use of depth and framing, showing Christine in the foreground praying as the murderer skulks around in the background shadows. Later, there are some foreboding shots of the two brothers, accompanied by their accomplice Morel carrying a stormlantern, smuggling the body of the murdered girl from the castle. Outlined against a darkening sky, they make their way across the crooked horizon, with the castle looming in the background flanked by huge windswept trees.
An intriguing darkly romantic tale of Gothic horrors, beautifully styled by one of the best visual artists in the genre.
Image from Continental Film Review.
Aldo Lado's story plays out against a backdrop of gorgeous locations with a marvelous real medieval castle with a clutter of courtyards, lush gardens, cavernous hallways and sombre rooms, surrounded by acres of sloping grounds; the ruined tower/watermill perched beside the stunning waterfalls (Cascate di Monte Gelato, a recurring location in Italian genre movies); a lake and the dense forest with its rocky slopes and carved outcrops. The forest is used in some lovely sequences, with dawning sunlight filtering through the fog-shrouded trees. During the course of the film, these settings are mostly represented in bright, beautiful sunlight, but, as the story progresses and the greedy schemes spiral down into debauchery and murder, the tone of the film also gradually darkens.
There is good evocation of the daily life in the 18th century, with an abundance of interesting visual details such as the sweaty blacksmiths at work, weavers sitting amid a cloud of wool or the doctor's examination of Christine's body, using a mirror to check for breath. In tune with the subject matter, the approach is somewhat more melodramatic than, for example, Juan Bunuel's more naturalistic tale of vampirism, Leonor (1975), to which this movie shares a certain resemblance in mood. In an aside, Leonor also shares a somewhat similar curtained wooden bathtub.
In Sepolta Viva, the bathtub is used for some glimpses of nudity of the lovely Agostina Belli, shown as she slips out of her clothes to be bathed by some servant girls, awarding us with some nice views of her ass and breasts. There is certainly no lack of nudity in the film: Belli again shows off her considerable assets in a bout of lovemaking with Philippe and later, locked up in the tower, through her shredded nightgown. Furthermore, there is the occasional rape and orgiastic party.
In tune with the darkly romantic tone of Gothic Fiction, the film contains some wonderfully sleazy moments, not the least a sordidly necrophiliac sequence during which Ferdinand sneaks into the chapel, opens Christine's coffin and with a lecherous expression playing on his features, slips his hand underneath her shroud to fondle her breasts, shots that are paralleled with his memories of an old hag concocting the poison used on the girl.
Aldo Lado's eye for detail becomes especially apparent in a stunning, and quite sordid, sequence at the convent. After Christine's 'death', Dominique de Matignan has renounced her worldly life to become a nun, and there are some gorgeous shots as she is introduced at the convent during prayers, a collection of detailed images of crosses, fingers handling prayer beads, lips moving in prayer, culminating in a candlelit procession of the nuns around the pillared courtyard galleries, their white habits beautifully contrasted with the shadowy convent surroundings. Meanwhile, Gaël, troubled with guilt and in love with Dominique for a very long time, sneaks onto the convent grounds and eventually into the nun's room. Through a partially opened doorway, Gaël watches her undress, her breasts taped tight to her body with white cloth. As she tries to ward off his feverish advances, Gaël slices open the enveloping cloth with a dagger, revealing the nun's breasts. With the other nuns gathered outside the locked door, alarmed by Dominique's screams, Gaël roughly rapes her, taking her from behind, before ultimately stabbing her to death. His passion spent, the insane Gaël then slashes his own throat with the bloodstained dagger, while still lying on top of the dead nun.
As the tale progresses, Ferdinand's ways become more and more debauched. There is a visually lovely sequence, introduced with a coach rattling to a halt at the castle gate and a servant guiding the visitors inside, carrying a lantern, across a candle-lit courtyard, and into a spacious room with musicians hidden (and outlined) behind a screen. What appears to be a mere musical evening at the castle, soon turns into a seedy and lecherous orgiastic feast, with the blindfolded guests groping and undressing one another while a drunken Ferdinand looks on. The drunken and erotic revelry at the castle is nicely offset and intercut with the sequence of Christine giving birth in the windswept tower across the river. Christine's loneliness and agony are shown by Lado in loving close-up shots, her mouth in pain, teeth clenched, hands clasping around an iron bar and her eyes wide open ... all marvelously contrasted with the barrage of grasping hands, lecherous pawings and undraped bodies at the ever more frivolous orgy in the castle.
But there seems to be no end to Ferdinand's evil. Bored by the sexual escapades played out before him, he wanders the castle corridors in a drunken haze, coming upon lovely Odette's bedroom. Peering through the doorway, he sees the girl asleep, one long bared leg sticking from underneath the white sheets. He softly sits down on the bed and slips his hand down the sleeping girl's nightgown. Awakened by his impertinent gestures, Odette tries to fight off the advances of her drunken Lord, but the struggle soon turns to rape as Ferdinand starts ripping off her clothes. When Odette's father tries to intervene, he is stabbed in the back for his troubles.
Although Lado's film contains various sordid and sleazy elements, the actual horror aspect are minimal. There is however, one wonderfully atmospheric sequence during which Christine is poisoned. As a storm rages outside, rain beating down and lightning flashing, we see the young woman sitting at the shrine in her bedroom, as a mysterious character peers through the window. Behind Christine's back, the shadowy figure sneaks into the room through the balcony door, and a gloved hand is seen slipping the poison into her drink. The candlelit room is beautifully appointed with its crooked arches, a huge fireplace, the sumptuous four-poster bed and Lado makes good use of depth and framing, showing Christine in the foreground praying as the murderer skulks around in the background shadows. Later, there are some foreboding shots of the two brothers, accompanied by their accomplice Morel carrying a stormlantern, smuggling the body of the murdered girl from the castle. Outlined against a darkening sky, they make their way across the crooked horizon, with the castle looming in the background flanked by huge windswept trees.
An intriguing darkly romantic tale of Gothic horrors, beautifully styled by one of the best visual artists in the genre.
Image from Continental Film Review.
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