Illustrious Corpses [1976]

 Rosi’s brooding, ominous and gripping slow-burn political conspiracy thriller Illustrious Corpses – adapted from renowned Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia’s novel Equal Danger – emphatically ranks amongst the most accomplished films of this sub-genre, that’d witnessed an explosion during the late-60s and 70s, even if it’s not as widely celebrated as many others. It was as piercingly reflective of that era of widespread governmental distrust on account of the growing totalitarian tendencies in the Western world, as it’s frighteningly relevant today in its unsettling depiction of a post-truth world where criminal connivance and media manipulations by governmental agencies, military-industry complex and deep state players have become par for the course. The shadowy collusion between the reactionary state, army, big business and the church – in order to combat left-wing ideas, mass protest movements and radical expressions of dissent – which Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura) gradually stumbles upon while investigating the murders of several prominent judges, also imbued stunning particularity in terms of the 70s zeitgeist in Italy. Ventura brought in a magnificent mix of gruff stolidity, existential weariness and simmering paranoia, which brilliantly juxtaposed the rotten state of affairs exemplified by the thuggish Chief of Police (Tino Carraro), the sinister Security Minister (Fernando Rey) and the arrogant Supreme Court President (Max von Sydow). The gorgeous, washed-out photography and minimalist jazz score superbly accentuated the film’s absorbing atmosphere dripping with cynicism, subterfuge, fatalism and melancholy. The obliquely constructed narrative, interestingly, began with an ironic sequence that mordantly underscored the ossified nature of the establishment, and ended with a cynical utterance (“the truth isn’t always revolutionary”) that was a desolate inversion of a famous saying by the iconoclastic Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who Rosi deeply admired.

Director: Francesco Rosi

Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Police Procedural

Language: Italian

Country: Italy