Fabio and Damiano D’Innocenzo are writer-director brothers who have come up very fast in the last five years, establishing a reputation as disruptive and unpredictable new filmmakers on the Italian scene with just two feature films under their belt. With their third film, America Latina, they hit the big time of Venice competition, but their work also comes under the microscope, a vantage point from which their speedy rise might have been a bit hasty. The new film may hit the spot in Italy, where Elio Germano is a popular actor with film-goers, but it looks too slight to go wide.
On the other hand, with its thriller tropes and expressionist hues, it can’t exactly be called sedate. The story is full of psychological twists as it creates anguish around both a kidnapped girl who is being held hostage in the basement of a middle-class home, and the startled homeowner (Germano) who finds her there while looking for a light bulb.
But compared to the screenplay of Matteo Garrone’s unsettling Dogman, on which the D’Innocenzos have collaborating writer credits, and especially their well-received, meaningfully offbeat second directorial effort Favolacce (Bad Tales) about pre-teens trying to adapt to their parents’ twisted world (it won best screenplay in Berlin last year), America Latina looks like pretty standard genre fare. The title literally translates as Latin America, but it is a pun on the Italian city of Latina just south of Rome, where the story is set. The area around Latina was reclaimed from swampland in the 1930’s under Mussolini, and the town still boasts a slew of rationalist buildings and monuments built in the Fascist era. None of this is onscreen, but Italian audiences will associate the place with an unexciting backwater far from the city lights.
This swampy backdrop offers a symbolic clue to the apparently very rational protagonist, the local dentist Massimo (Germano), who is introduced performing precision surgery on a patient’s mouth. The title’s other meaning of a continent suggests the tragedy of South American desaparecidos or missing persons, who have been kidnapped and made to disappear, such as the young girl (Sara Ciocca) that Massimo is shocked to find tied up in his basement. (Since she never speaks, she could be any nationality.)
His first instinct is to reach for his cell phone and call for help, but he stops himself. Why? This is the question the directors dangle in front of the audience for the rest of the film. Instead of freeing the poor terrified girl, he leaves her tied and gagged in the soundproof basement of his home, while he goes on living upstairs with his gracious wife (Astrid Casali) and daughters, pretending there’s nothing unusual going on under their feet. Their period designer house, with its regal outdoor staircase and swimming pool, plays a big role in the story.
He might be a little edgy around his best friend and drinking buddy Simone (Maurizio Lastrico), a used car salesman who is hurting for cash. Could he be involved with the girl’s presence? Massimo investigates this angle. Too nervous to drill his patients’ teeth, he stays home and turns on his adorable family, who suspiciously all wear angelic white clothing day after day. Is there something evil behind their innocent smiles? He begins to have memory black-outs. Clearly things are falling apart in his mind.
The madwoman in the attic is a well-worn horror device; she has represented the protag’s repressed impulses from Jane Eyre to Psycho. Even if the D’Innocenzo brothers relocate her underground, the nameless girl with her wildly uncombed hair and desperate eyes fits the bill. Since she appears to live without food, surviving on water alone, it seems logical to ask whether she isn’t just a figment of Massimo’s imagination. Thriller fans will find other plausible explanations, some much better than the one chosen for story’s bland ending.
If the narrative thread is frustrating, Elio Germano (he played one of the off-the-wall parents in Favolacce) keeps you guessing. Considering he’s often shot in extreme close ups that shows off his scared eyes, he gives a fairly controlled portrait of a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown who can no longer make sense of the world or even his most cherished relationships. These he destroys with sarcasm, cruelty and violence in a skin-crawling scene late in the film.
The tale, lensed by Paolo Carnera, is high on atmosphere, which was a strong point of the suburban nightmare Favolacce. The cinematography reinforces the inventiveness of Roberto De Angelis’s production design, from the extraordinary geometry of the family’s curving house to a spooky field at night where a shallow grave is dug. Verdena’s background music constantly questions what Massimo is up to, pushing the mystery aspect of the story.
Directors, screenplay: Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo
Cast: Elio Germano, Astrid Casali, Carlotta Gamba, Sara Ciocca, Maurizio Lastrico, Federica Pala, Filippo Dini, Massimo Wertmuller
Producers: Lorenzo Mieli in association with Massimiliano Orfei, Jean and Anne-Laure Labadie
Cinematography: Paolo Carnera
Production design: Roberto De Angelis
Costume design: Massimo Cantini Parrini
Editing: Walter Fasano
Music: Verdena
Sound: Maricetta Lombardo
Production companies: The Apartment–a Fremantle Company (Italy), Vision Distribution (Italy), Le Pacte (France)
World sales: Vision Distribution
Venue: Venice Film Festival (competition)
In Italian
90 minutes
