una donna si sottopone a torture per riuscire a interpretare una parte di chi deve soffrire davvero, non fingere.
e poi il film si apre, a cene e feste, e a discussioni politiche sul terrorismo e sui palestinesi.
un film così non si vede tutti i giorni e bisogna essere forti per non abbandonare il film.
una visione se la merita tutta - Ismaele
…Karlatos sobs which convincing realism. She looks hurt, she
looks upset and she looks tortured. Obviously quite committed to her part, this
is never the less pretty much an atrocity exhibition wrapped up in the guise of
a political statement. Where Passolini was able to create something cerebrally
interesting with his horror show Salo, Papatakis’ is content to simply bombard
us with nastiness. To his credit, the nastiness is effective in making the
viewer uncomfortable. The seediness isn’t confined to just the acts we see the
participants involved in either, it spreads to the look of the film. Everything
here seems unclean, dirty, as if you might catch something if you touched the
wall or nicked your finger on a piece of paper on set. Again, there’s obviously
something that Papatakis was trying to say here and it likely stems back to
Galai’s past ties to Algerian revolutionaries. It was only a decade before this
picture was made that Galai’s ancestors and possible family members would have
been fighting a brutal war against the French for their independence and no
doubt torture was involved in the real world version of the conflict. Given
that Algerian women did play a role in the active combat of the revolution, is
Galai working out her demons, trying to clean the scars left from her time in
that conflict? That’s an interesting idea but the film never really makes it
entirely clear…
…In Hell isn’t an exercise in surrealism, but
more performance art, and Karlatos is brilliant as the tormented actress who
gradually loses her mind in what may be a make believe terrorist crusade
orchestrated from the grave by her anarchic director / husband Hamidas. It’s a
great performance by an actress better known for more commercial genre films –
the spaghetti western Keoma (1976),
shockers Cyclone (1978) and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1979)
and Murderock (1984) – and a handful of TV and film
appearances, notably Prince’s mother in Purple Rain (1984).
As revolting
/ appalling as the sexual torture may be, it is in context with the character’s
shift from actress to terrorist, and Papatakis stages some brilliant sequences.
The best is perhaps Galai’s bank bombing run-through, which has both wit and a
mounting fear that she may err and blow herself to bits as she works out the
correct blocking and performance beats.
Papatakis
also makes use of some striking decrepit locations. Galai resides in a bombed
out apartment block, and her building is a disintegrating by the second. The
production most likely decorated a condemned, derelict building, and the
omnipresent decay provides potent subtext in her scenes prior to venturing to
France for financial backing. There’s also a few intriguing editorial touches,
especially the zoomed-in masking of a notice informing Galai of imminent danger…
…The film is rambling and
incoherent at times; a cacophonous barrage of screaming, caterwauling and
unabashed sobbing while images of disturbing violence engage in an almost
incessant attack upon the screen. Papatakis captures grime and filth on the
lens, while the dark and morbid musical score from Barbaud Brown Klein and Nico
Fidenco simply add insult to injury upon an already tiring assault to the
senses.
In Hell is recommended only to those with a strong constitution against what,
in essence, is the unmitigated humiliation of Olga Karlatos. The actress’
incredible performance doesn’t make her celluloid snuff film any more difficult
to take, yet fans who appreciated her work in Zombie owe it to
themselves to attempt and sit through In Hell for a real test
of what it takes to truly suffer for one’s art…
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