ACROSS THE RIVER

Ethologist Marco Contrada has just arrived with his camper in a wooded area on the border between Friuli and Slovenia. His task is to census the animals of the forest and monitor their movements. Thus, after placing some video cameras on the trees, he manages to capture a fox, on which he places a collar equipped with a camera. Following the movements of the fox, Marco arrives in a small village that is located on the other side of the river, a cluster of abandoned houses dating back to the Second World War. But in those places, someone or something seems to be lurking that now feels threatened in its territory. We met the Friulian director Lorenzo Bianchini in 2001 with "Square Root of Three," a tiny no-budget horror film made entirely in a school (the same one where the director works) but with an incredible evocative power. At the time, he had already impressed us positively, but the "coup de grâce" came in 2004 with "Custodes Bestiae," one of the most successful examples to date in the landscape of new Italian independent horror, so intriguing and frightening that it really leaves a mark. Since then, Bianchini has continued his activity following a thematic and stylistic coherence that places him among the most interesting Italian authors today. Yes, perhaps the "Dirty Film" experiment is a bit out of place in the filmography, but "Eyes" (2010) and now "Across the River – Beyond the Ford" (2013) give a sense of authorial completeness capable of carrying forward a discourse that acquires value from film to film, in a greater way if observed in its entirety. "Across the River – Beyond the Ford" had a rather troubled genesis, a film whose shoots extended for over a year until it was completed in a mature but at the same time imperfect work, yet highly fascinating. The first thing that will jump out at the viewer who knows the omnibus work of the Friulian director is the huge qualitative leap that "Beyond the Ford" makes technically accomplish in Bianchini's cinema. Visually speaking, "Beyond the Ford" is really excellent, managing to make you forget in a nanosecond that you are in front of a film with almost zero budget. The flaw, in fact, that was behind the director's previous works, especially if revisited today, was the visual poverty given mainly by digital means. "Beyond the Ford," on the other hand, is visually excellent, and much of the merit goes to both the beautiful photography of Daniele Trani and the suggestive sets of Stefano Tell. And it is precisely the sets that give this film great personality, mostly natural environments such as the forest that connects Friuli with Slovenia where all the exteriors are set and the real abandoned Slovenian village Topolov, which really instills fear and emits a deadly air that gives chills. The decaying and dilapidated interiors are also certainly very impactful, as is the use of the element of water, recurring in more sequences of the film as a link between what is on this side and the other side of the river. In many respects, "Across the River – Beyond the Ford" brings to mind "Silent Hill," game and film, immersing the main character, very well played by Marco Marchese, and the viewer in a sort of other dimension outside of time and space, where unsettling things happen perhaps related to the past and move shadows with feminine features. Also, the alternation between Marco lost in the village and the rescuers who search for him in vain recall the good film by Christopher Gans about the ghost town, although then "Beyond the Ford" follows its own course that transforms it almost into an elegant slasher. We said however that Bianchini's new film is imperfect, because if on the one hand there is an enviable stylistic care and a praiseworthy use of the atmosphere, on the other hand there is a rhythm that is too slow, almost static, which gives the impression that narratively speaking the film does not move. And in part it is true, because the different dead times are caused more than anything by a wrong dosage of the scanning of the events, concentrated mostly in the last minutes, with the consequence that many details are not deepened and too many questions left unanswered. In this regard, the characters of the two elderly people and the details related to the ghostly figures that haunt the forest, perceived as threats by the viewer without there being a real reason, should certainly have been managed better. "Beyond the Ford" is therefore a film to be seen, it has great personality and confirms the talent of a director who would certainly deserve greater fame. The atmosphere is there, the unease too, but the rhythm and a screenplay that enhances the interesting subject are missing.