AG
Alessio Gradogna
•A young scholar moves to the countryside with his wife to be able to carry out his experiments on animals more calmly and peacefully, which could lead him to great and revolutionary discoveries in the field of medicine, and particularly in the possibility of bringing dead or seriously injured animals back to life. The wife knows nothing about these experiments for which the husband, who no longer pays her any attention, raids animals in the countryside to use as guinea pigs. The study becomes an obsession, despite the suspicions of the local community, and the obsession will lead to increasing cruelty towards animals and a progressive descent into madness. The first feature film by the American Fessenden, unfortunately unreleased in Italy, immediately shows all the qualities of the director that will also be found in his future films: fast and concrete narratives, great tension, courage to use 'strong' elements and to show unpleasant and unconventional things, Lynchian visionary inserts of great effect, very imaginative direction. Experimental cinema, modern cinema, horror cinema that blends into the thriller and at times almost into the melodrama, but cinema of high value, in this case dealing with a contemporary Frankenstein in a rural version, who wants to reanimate animals and not humans. The theme of obsession with science leading to madness has been seen and revisited, but Fessenden modernizes it with great effectiveness. The only flaw of the film? It ends too soon, when it seems there is still much to say.
