A MOSCA CIECA
(“Blind Fly”)
Production: Italy, 1966
Director: Romano Scavolini
Category: Experimental Giallo
First film by Italian prodigy Scavolini, who was only twenty-five at the time; shot in black-and-white, and silent save for an electronic musical score by Vittorio Gelmetti, it is a film of an amok killer, a man who one Sunday afternoon obtains a gun and starts shooting at people heading toward a sports stadium. The man’s aimless life is shown in a series of flashbacks which include gestural repetitions and signifiers, time reversals, and short circuits. In evoking the fractural psychology of a random killer, Scavolini reminds us of the Surrealist provocation, devised by André Breton, of firing a pistol randomly into the crowded street. A Mosca Cieca played at several international festivals to considerable acclaim, but was refused certification by the Italian board of censors and also banned by the Council of State on charges of blasphemy, pornography (there was in fact only some brief female nudity) and irrational violence. The film was ordered to be destroyed, but Scavolini managed to smuggle it out of the country. It has never been commercially screened.
Posted by Lycanthrope
