THE SPIDER'S STRATAGEM Movie Review

Thirty years after his father's murder by fascists, a young man (Giulio Brogi) returns to that small Italian town to learn why the killing took place. When the townspeople resist his inquiry, he becomes trapped in a mysterious and ever-widening web where history and its convenient revision exert a stranglehold on the truth. (That truth, by the way, turns out to be stranger than you will guess.) Based on the short story “The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” by Jorge Luis Borges, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Spider's Stratagem is an ingeniously worked-out mystery/thriller laced with darkly comic psychological and political undertones. It's one of Bertolucci's most visually stunning achievements as well, featuring intoxicatingly lush color cinematography by the legendary Vittorio Storaro (Last Tango in Paris, Apocalypse Now). A find.

NEXT STOP … Luna, Ulysses'Gaze, Birthplace

1970 97m/C IT Giulio Brogi, Alida Valli; D: Bernardo Bertolucci; W: Bernardo Bertolucci. VHS NYF, FCT, AUD