By Ben Bussey
Welcome back to Wales! In a strange kind of way it seems fitting that the horror festival of England’s bilingual neighbour should play host to the UK premiere of a movie spoken in Italian though shot by Argentinians. Okay, maybe that’s a bit tenuous, but bear with me on this. To be a horror fan means being a little bilingual in a way – or multi-cultural, at least. The genre is a real cultural melting pot; get enough real enthusiasts together and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference who made it or where it came from, so long as it delves into that same dark corner of the human soul, dances on those same nerve endings, tickles that same morbid funny bone. So it was that the tenth annual Abertoir presented attendees with horror movies from all over the world, old and new alike, and while I regretted that I wasn’t able to attend as much of the festival as I would have liked, a grand time was had. Francesca was the first film on the final day of the festival, and in its own way as good a representation as any of how diverse horror can be. After all, it’s not every day you see a contemporary film from Argentina which looks, sounds and feels exactly like something that was made in 1970s Italy, is it? (On which note, it was quite convenient that Abertoir screened Argento’s Profondo Rosso just two days earlier, providing a convenient frame of reference.)
Of course, the idea of an Argentinian movie recreating a 70s Italian aesthetic might not seem too radically out-of-the-ordinary if you happened to see the earlier feature from Francesca filmmakers the Onetti Brothers, 2013’s Sonno Profondo (which Keri reviewed on its release). While I haven’t actually seen the earlier film just yet, Francesca plays out pretty much exactly the way I’d imagined it would (and I’m assured by those who have seen it that it’s in very much the same spirit). The pros and cons of this no doubt hinge on how fond you happen to be of the Giallo. Historically, the subgenre has never been very close to my heart, but in more recent times I do find myself warming to it that bit more, and as such I’m happy to say that all in all I found Francesca very enjoyable – although it’s immediately obvious that this won’t be the case for everyone.
The plot, such as it is, is fairly simple. Would you believe it, there’s a murderer on the loose – and, even more unbelievably, they’ve taken to wearing a leather coat and gloves and a conveniently face-obscuring fedora. However, this isn’t your classic Giallo man in black; it’s clearly a woman, favouring red leather over black (killer heels notwithstanding), and she’s on some sort of personal vendetta killing spree. In the tradition of the best big screen killers, there’s a recurring theme to these murders, each of them in a curious way making reference to that time-honoured bedtime story Dante’s Inferno, and each of the victims in some way connected to a long-cold case; the disappearance of a little girl named Francesca, daughter of a noted literary historian, some fifteen years earlier. Do these killings indicate that Francesca has come home? Can the cops find her before it’s too late? And just how much J&B will be drunk in the process?
No, as a piece of narrative storytelling, Francesca doesn’t have a great deal to offer, nor is there much in terms of character development. But then, given how closely the Onettis adhere to the conventions of Giallo, there’s absolutely no reason to expect otherwise. Their key concern is period detail and atmosphere, and in this it’s nigh-on impossible to fault their work. We’ve seen innumerable movies since Grindhouse which have aspired to capture a ‘lost movie of the 1970s’ vibe; a few (such as Dear God No!) have come close, but the bulk of them have drowned in their own pastiche. It’s really quite remarkable how closely the Onettis recreate the giallo feel: the music, cinematography, set decoration, costume, special effects and performances all feel as though they have been directly plucked from the era, with almost nothing giving it away as a film made in 2015. And given that the Onettis appear to have covered the vast majority of the key filmmaking duties between the two of them, Francesca definitely stands testament to the wonders that can be achieved in small-scale independent filmmaking.
On a purely technical level, then, Francesca is an indisputable triumph. As to whether there’s more to appreciate than that – once again, this may hinge on how much you like Giallo. As befits the genre, the film is strangely structured, filled with gratuitous arty flourishes often bulging with excessively sexualised imagery, with twists and turns that make little sense, almost non-existent characterisation, and – despite this busyness – there remain long, dull stretches in which very little seems to happen. If you have little patience for this, it’s doubtful you’ll have much patience for Francesca.
Still, compare the work of the Onetti Brothers to that of Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet, directorial duo behind the considerably artier and more alienating Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, and there can be little question that this is the more accessible work. Yes, Francesca impresses first and foremost in a technical and aesthetic capacity, but it does also offer an agreeable plateful of cinematic weirdness which will surely prove palatable to those who love giallo, and might even wind up bringing those not quite converted to the genre (such as myself) to ponder what they’re missing. Whether it’s enough to establish the Onettis as filmmakers of a unique personal vision is debatable, but I’m not sure that was necessarily the point. Either way, Francesca is most definitely worth a watch, so should you get the chance I recommend you sit back, pour yourself a J&B (making sure the bottle’s label is visible on camera of course), and give it a chance.
Learn more at the Francesca Facebook page.