A Leap in the Dark [1980]

 The complex, sordid and unsettling dynamics of a family bordering on catastrophic, self-destructive dysfunction in A Leap in the Dark, and its bristling disdain for bourgeois morality and hypocrisies, sharply mirrored Marco Bellocchio’s stunning debut feature Fists in the Pocket from two decades back. The striking expressionism and formal audacity of the latter were replaced with a more controlled ferocity and muted visual palette here; the filmmaker’s radical and subversive lens, and his script’s gleeful grotesquerie and dark irony, however, hadn’t clearly mellowed in these preceding years, despite the evolution in his authorial voice. The film’s two central characters – Mauro (Michel Piccoli), a middle-aged bachelor and wealthy judge filled with complex neuroses, insecurities and repressed childhood memories, and Marta (Anouk Aimée), his similarly middle-aged and unmarried elder sister, who’s plagued with mental health afflictions and recurrent suicidal impulses – have been living together for many years in their sprawling and decadent apartment in Rome. Mauro’s intense possessiveness of and continuous obsession with his beautiful and fragile sister added disconcerting incestuous undertones to their relationship, as well as indications of underlying madness which will become increasingly revealed as Marta’s insanity subsides. This ironic switchover is precipitated by Giovanni (Michele Placido), a young anarchic actor in underground theatre and with delinquent tendencies, who Mauro introduces Marta to in order to push her over the edge, but becomes fiercely jealous of when he finds them developing a sensual relationship leading to improvements in her disposition. Piccoli was devastatingly brilliant, while Aimée and Placido were excellent too, as the non-conjugal couple’s cocooned, meticulously organized and oppressively sedate lives – and in a manic and blazing climactic sequence, their apartment too – experience a complete meltdown.

Director: Marco Bellocchio

Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Family Drama

Language: Italian

Country: Italy