Despite it being one of the first Gialli that I picked up when I started to take a look at the sub-genre,I have somehow always ended up leaving Cross Current to become "lost in the shuffle" against,other more recent Gialli titles that I have picked up.
Searching round for a Mario Bava title which I had misplaced a few days ago,I was thrilled to stumble upon the DVD of the film by pure chance,which led to me deciding that it was finally time to discover the river that the current originated from.
View on the film:
Keeping the violence smartly limited to the moments where Marco (and the other character's) get a hard jolt of the mystery that they have found themselves caught up in,the screenplay by co-writer/director Tonino Ricci/Aldo Crudo/Arpad DeRiso/Rafael Azcona and Jose Maria Forque gradually builds the story into a slowly unravelling psychological Giallo,with Marco's fragmented memories being slowly put together piece by piece,so that along with giving this Giallo a dream-like quality,they also help to reveal the character's unsettled nature on the psychological effects of Breda's accident,and also the desperation felt by the mysterious stranger in stopping Marco from fully remember the "lost days".
Although the full screen print of the film was sadly not the greatest quality that I have ever seen,Tonino Ricci's and cinematography Cecilio Paniagua (who also worked on Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil) excellent work was thankfully still able to shine,with Ricci and Paniagua making the appearance of the indoor scenes transform from atmospheric darkness into a bright,hazy nightmare world which is being infected by the surreal,ultra stylised brightness of the dream like outdoors.
Along with showing terror as the fragmented memories begin to join up,Philippe Leroy also gives Marco Breda a tremendous world-weary feeling,which along with showing how desperate Breda is to not be pulled into the strange events taking place around him,also gives the character a refreshingly realistic edge.Contrasting Leroy's world-weary performance,Elga Anderson and Rosanna Yanni give the movie some real sparks as Monica Breda and Terry Povani,with Anderson showing real uneasy as Marco's uncomfortable wife,and Yanni (who also appears naked in the movie) setting the movie alight by wearing a short skirt in stylishly done disco scenes,that along with a delightfully kitsch performance by Ivan Rassimov make this crossing Giallo one very much worth taking.
Searching round for a Mario Bava title which I had misplaced a few days ago,I was thrilled to stumble upon the DVD of the film by pure chance,which led to me deciding that it was finally time to discover the river that the current originated from.
View on the film:
Keeping the violence smartly limited to the moments where Marco (and the other character's) get a hard jolt of the mystery that they have found themselves caught up in,the screenplay by co-writer/director Tonino Ricci/Aldo Crudo/Arpad DeRiso/Rafael Azcona and Jose Maria Forque gradually builds the story into a slowly unravelling psychological Giallo,with Marco's fragmented memories being slowly put together piece by piece,so that along with giving this Giallo a dream-like quality,they also help to reveal the character's unsettled nature on the psychological effects of Breda's accident,and also the desperation felt by the mysterious stranger in stopping Marco from fully remember the "lost days".
Although the full screen print of the film was sadly not the greatest quality that I have ever seen,Tonino Ricci's and cinematography Cecilio Paniagua (who also worked on Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil) excellent work was thankfully still able to shine,with Ricci and Paniagua making the appearance of the indoor scenes transform from atmospheric darkness into a bright,hazy nightmare world which is being infected by the surreal,ultra stylised brightness of the dream like outdoors.
Along with showing terror as the fragmented memories begin to join up,Philippe Leroy also gives Marco Breda a tremendous world-weary feeling,which along with showing how desperate Breda is to not be pulled into the strange events taking place around him,also gives the character a refreshingly realistic edge.Contrasting Leroy's world-weary performance,Elga Anderson and Rosanna Yanni give the movie some real sparks as Monica Breda and Terry Povani,with Anderson showing real uneasy as Marco's uncomfortable wife,and Yanni (who also appears naked in the movie) setting the movie alight by wearing a short skirt in stylishly done disco scenes,that along with a delightfully kitsch performance by Ivan Rassimov make this crossing Giallo one very much worth taking.