Word: petri
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HOLLYWOOD has recently discovered that politics can be used to spice up perversity (and vice versa) in catering to mass consumer cravings: pushing old commodities in new packaging. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion works out quite skillfully this newly elaborate and sophisticated formula. Directed by Italian Elio Petri-if not for exclusively American capital (Euro International), at least with U. S. distribution (Columbia) ever in mind-the production won an Academy Award last week for the Best Foreign ( sic ) Film of 1971. Which is a pretty good tip-off that no matter how "controversial" its politics, this pictures poses...
...Petri's portrait of Authority remains just that: the poetic evocation of images from murky psychic depths and from a conception of the authoritarian mentality as an autonomous entity. It remains stagnant, detached from the dynamic politico-economic context that created it. This is not to say, however, that Volonte is "unconvincing" in the realistic portrayal of an individual pig-figure. His characterization is in fact masterful in embodying the all-important humanist absolute, Ambiguity, as he transforms the cop smoothly, almost imperceptibly-within single shots-from an archetypal tyrant to a snivelling child. It is the very wholeness...
Kafka's observation provides a fitting epilogue to a brilliant, complex and vagrant film, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. Can a police chief -or any official with direct power -commit any atrocity that piques his fancy and get away with it? Italian Director Elio Petri (The Tenth Victim, A Quiet Place in the Country) raises a disturbing question that seems to defy satisfactory answer...
...pulse of Citizen are reminiscent of Costa-Gavras' magnificent Z. Its nearly surrealistic aspects-as in a fantasy in which his inspection-department cronies refuse to allow him to plead guilty-are rather shaky recalls of Bunuel. Indeed, the film's fundamental drawback is that Director Petri is intent on political statement: the terrors of police fascism. The inspector cries: "Repression is civilization," and such crude political commentary detracts from solid psychological drama...
This is only a flaw in an icy gem. Petri's calculating direction is too swift and merciless to allow the clutter to become insuperable. Volonte, meanwhile, invests the role of the cold, internally rent inspector with brutal authority, giving credence to the proposition that if justice is blind, so is its terrible opposite...