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| Image Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures - Photo: Andrea Pirrello |
The movie starts with the sound of the siren that alerts Venetians that acqua alta is approaching. Everyone who lives in Venice understands the dread you feel when the air is filled with the blast of the air raid siren. Then, one by one, the wailing tones go up, up, up, depending on the level of the water. The fourth tone, rarely heard, is ominous, and warns residents to prepare for the worst. By using the high water siren to start the film, director Stefano Mordini invokes an eerie backdrop for a movie that confronts the supernatural.
Here is a YouTube clip from La Repubblica -- from real life in Venice, not from the movie -- so you can hear the haunting siren for yourselves:
The movie reminded me of Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now -- both films are about the loss of a child and supernatural contacts, and both are set in Venice. However, Lasciami Andare is a more internal story about grief and guilt and a man torn between two women -- his former wife, the mother of his dead child, and his new, pregnant lover -- than a thriller.
I
saw the Saturday afternoon screening at the film festival, and thought it was compelling. I posted
on social media alerting everyone to see the film that evening, as it
was playing all over town. To my surprise, someone in the States replied
on Twitter that the film was based on the book You Came Back
written by Christopher Coake, who was a friend of hers. I was amazed
that the book was actually set in the American Midwest. Venice is so
much an element of the film that it seemed it had been written just for
the city.
Next, up popped Christopher Coake himself, who tweeted that he had not yet seen
the film. He and his wife were supposed to be at the opening on Saturday
night during the Venice Film Festival but could not travel due to the
pandemic. But he did say that he had watched Don't Look Now for the first time while writing the novel.
There are houses in Venice where the sun enters through the cracks, capturing the image of what it encounters and reflecting it on the walls. The process is like the camera obscura. Marco and Clara lived in a house like this and it is in the image of a canal, with wooden boats and the odd gondola passing by, that something more than a simple landscape is reflected. Looking more closely, in the beams of light you can see something else. And that is where the camera starts in its search for young Leo, to help him leave.
Lasciami Andare, which translates to "Let Me Go" not "You Came
Back," opens in theaters in Italy on October 8. Let's hope it becomes
available on streaming with English subtitles for all the Venice lovers
out there. I can't find an English-language review, but just that it is
set in Venice makes it worth watching (I'm biased). Go to La Biennale for the synopsis and details.
The closing film of the 77th Venice International Film Festival was Lasciami Andare (You Came Back), which filmed in Venice last November and December when the city was hit by the devastating November 12th flood, followed by endless periods of acqua alta, or high water. Production continued on the movie, and the weather was skillfully incorporated into the film.
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