UK RELEASE DATE - 7th January 2011.

My vice is a locked giallo vault and only co-directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani have the key! Death has a new taste and it’s bitter, or AMER, as the title of my Movie of the Moment describes it. Unlike most films today that are instantly forgotten once past the closing credits, AMER still flits through my mind like a butterfly with bloodstained wings.

I absolutely adore this flawless tribute to the ethereal mystique and Pop Art madness of the 70s gialli with their definitive style, recurring themes and visual motifs. No question in my mind that Cattet and Forzani’s perfect riffing on the vintage Italian thriller back catalogue is one of the boldest and original visionary statements of recent times. Not only does the incredibly talented Belgian couple master the hypnotic allure of the classic gialli by creating a virtually dialogue-free narrative through-line, they tie it to the essential appeal this most delicate of genres has for devotees. Although it’s clear from some negative festival reviews it’ll be as difficult as ever to explain to the uninitiated who just don’t get the dual attraction and repulsion of sexual and violent imagery feeding the viewer’s desire to discover the truth behind the warped psychology of a myriad of black leather gloved assassins. Cattet and Forzani’s perversion story revolves around Ana (played by Cassandra Foret, Charlotte Eugene-Guibbaud and Marie Bos) and is told in three distinct parts, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. But the plot is a peripheral entity because this is a film solely about sensation, emotion and experience. Suffice it to say AMER deals with Freud’s ‘Primal Scene’ theory that supplied the gialli with repeated murderous deeds throughout its short five-year lifespan. That’s the supposition any child witnessing parental sexual intercourse (here beautifully rendered in SUSPIRIA primal colours) can misinterpret the event as a terrifying incident causing trauma later in life. So that translates as the various stages in a woman’s discovery of her sexuality through a series of shocking incidents; the shocks received as a child because no one tells you anything, the shock of sexual awakening in teenage years, and the shocks of sexual disappointment in maturity, which in this case leads to a brutal switchblade-on-teeth razor murder. While the first stanza orbits around a single night of creepy ritual when Ana’s grandfather dies, and the last deals with sublime fetishism, the middle section outlining a lyrically sexualized walk to the town hairdresser is my absolute favourite because it unfolds in natural light as all the best gialli do. Charlotte Eugene-Guibbaud couldn’t be more tantalizing as the hair-chewing Lolita either with her mini-dress hem flapping against her knickers at crotch-level. Maria Bos is pure Florinda Bolkan in the eyes-reflected-in-knife-blade finale, the portion where debts to A LIZARD IN A WOMAN’S SKIN are felt the most. Shimmering with a lush vibrancy and utilizing recycled Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Stelvio Cipriani and Adriano Celentano music within its superb sound design,

AMER carries an erotic and exotic charge I never thought could be replicated again outside such essential gialli as STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER or the classic Dario Argento Animal Trilogy. AMER is a faultless masterpiece, so just relax and breathe in the heady perfume of Cattet and Forzani’s dazzling lady in black.

Alan Jones.

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