Primal Impulse (Le Orme)

PRIMAL IMPULSE (LE ORME, "Footprints," 1974), aka FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON 

Directed by Luigi Bazzoni 

Written by Mario Fanelli based on his novel Las Huellas 

Cinematography by Vittorio Storaro 

Music by Nicola Piovani 

Starring Florinda Bolkan, Peter McEnery, Nicoletta Elmi, Caterina Boratto and Klaus Kinski.

In 1986, this "big box" release from Charles Band's Force Video label hit the rental shelves with a meaningless retitling, nonsensical tagline, slightly misleading cover art, and a wildly inaccurate plot synopsis on the back. It was an undercover gem, lying in wait until I had exhausted all the higher profile Euro-horror titles on my endless must-see list. By the late '80s, I hadn't even seen all the Argento, Fulci, Bava, et al. movies I'd been reading about, so this wasn't something that looked like it required my attention. Yet. I don't think it really caught my eye until I noticed the small print that read, "Starring Klaus Kinski," at the bottom of the cover. This of course turned out to be as highly deceptive as the rest of the box copy, but after seeing Werner Herzog's AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD in 1988, I was a bona fide Kinski completist. Anything with his name on it and I was there.

A brief flash forward almost 30 years later and LE ORME is widely known among Italian genre film fans and readily available on DVD as well as via multiple streaming services. It's been endlessly reviewed since the Shameless DVD release, so yet another obscure blogger review will only be redundant. We'll go ahead and be redundant anyway, but the real purpose of even bringing it up is to set a scene before the Internet, before this tiny subculture of ours had a network beyond the handful of hard-to-find xeroxed fanzines and the very small force of devoted journalists scattered across the globe who occasionally let us know that we weren't the only ones who were seeking out these movies. 

We knew we weren't the first to discover GATES OF HELL or INFERNO on VHS rental store shelves, but every now and then there would be a tape like PRIMAL IMPULSE or REVENGE OF THE DEAD (ZEDER) that would make us think, "Does anyone else know about this?" Does anyone else know that hidden behind this barely-related exploitation packaging is a beautiful art film that really elevates the genre? I remember trying to track down any info I could find on PRIMAL IMPULSE and its director Luigi Bazzoni and coming up empty. Every now and then there would be an entry in a video guide or a horror encyclopedia, but most of them seem to have been written based on the box synopsis and not based on an actual viewing of the film.

With all that in mind, what follows is a review I wrote in 1999, at least a decade after I'd first seen the movie. I wrote it because I had still not found anything substantial about the film or its director, and I'd become frustrated by the perpetuation of the false synopsis. I was also going a bit crazy, thinking that I really was one of the few people who had even seen this thing. Thankfully it's gotten it due at this point, but it still reminds me even now that there are still gems to be uncovered. So at the risk of being redundant...

Florinda Bolkan (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION) stars as Alice, a translator working in Italy, who one morning awakens from a disturbing dream to discover that she has lost all memory of the past three days. She arrives at work and is told that she ran off in the middle of a job at an international conference three days prior and then failed to turn in another important assignment. Desperate to discover the reasons behind her memory loss and disappearance, Alice returns to her apartment to sift through the few clues that may point her in the right direction. A postcard of an old hotel, labeled "Garma - Hotel Garma," that has been ripped into quarters and a yellow dress that has mysteriously appeared in her closet are Alice's only leads. After phoning her friend with the news that he has almost certainly lost her job, Alice packs the dress and sets off for the (fictional) Turkish isle of Garma.

To reveal any more of the plot would risk spoiling this unique film, but it is worth mentioning that there seems to be a few widespread misconceptions about just what kind of movie LE ORME is. It is not a science fiction film, a reading that can probably be attributed to the hilariously wrong-headed synopses available on the PRIMAL IMPULSE video box and various review encyclopedias, and it could only loosely be considered a giallo, a label that may have mistakenly been placed on the film due to its inclusion in books like Blood & Black Lace and Spaghetti Nightmares. Approaching the film with expectations of black-gloved killers or sci-fi thrills will only end in disappointment. Imagine something midway between Nic Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW and Robert Altman's IMAGES, but minus the violence found in the former, and you'll have a better idea of what to expect.

It may sound contradictory to what I've written above, PRIMAL IMPULSE begins with a scene of an astronaut being abandoned on the moon. Nicola Piovani's haunting score plays over eerie images of the astronaut awakening from unconsciousness to find his lunar lander has departed without him. This sequence is a recurring dream of Alice's. She explains to a friend that it is a dream of a strangely disturbing movie that she once walked out on ("It was called BLOOD ON THE MOON...no...no, FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON"). The dream appears throughout the film, but with great subtlety, director Luigi Bazzoni (THE FIFTH CORD) gradually removes the cinematic indicators that say to the audience, "This is a dream." It becomes apparent that this "dream" is a subconscious warning, but one that Alice is unable to decipher as she becomes lost in the netherworld between what is real and what is imagined, between sanity and insanity. Bolkan plays the character with strength and conviction, only allowing Alice's confusion and doubt to seep through in small, ever-increasing doses. Her sympathetic performance and the elliptical storytelling by Bazzoni and Fanelli place certain demands on the viewer who comes to the film expecting a conventional mystery with a crowd-pleasing solution. The solution to the mystery is a simple one, but one that has apparently been rejected by many viewers, given the numerous incorrect synopses that have been reported. PRIMAL IMPULSE is slow-paced and unconventionally plotted, but viewers who are willing to place mood before narrative will find much to enjoy here.

Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (THE CONFORMIST, APOCALYPSE NOW) gives the film a unique look that enhances the mystery of the plot. Lush colors and magic-hour lighting create a haunting mood that lends the film an almost supernatural atmosphere. His camera often studies seemingly inconsequential objects and interiors, giving them as much narrative importance as the emotions that run across Florinda Bolkan's face. The viewer is left wondering which details are there to be read and deciphered and which are simply stylistic flourishes. This is also a feature of Piovani's terrific score, which initially takes the viewer off guard with some odd instrumentation choices, but eventually pays off when it is revealed that the music refers specifically to certain plot points in the film. Piovani plants subtle musical clues that go beyond the standard music box/nursery rhyme device used in countless Italian thrillers before and after DEEP RED. Because of this attention to detail, the film almost demands multiple viewings and a second look may even be more rewarding to viewers who are already prepared for the unconventional ending.

In addition to Bolkan's superb performance, the other actors deserve mention as they elevate the film above standard expectations. Despite some awkward dubbing, Nicoletta Elmi (DEEP RED, FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN) is a stand-out in what may be one of her lengthiest roles. Fellini fans may recognize Caterina Boratto (8 1/2, JUILET OF THE SPIRITS), who turns in a warm and realistic performance with just a hint of ambiguity, and finally, Peter McEnery is a likable male lead with an appropriate air of mystery to mask his oblique motives. Klaus Kinski appears for what amounts to about 20 seconds of screentime, but he is invariably top-billed with Bolkan in the film's advertising material.

The 1986 Force Video VHS release is cropped, but features an otherwise attractive transfer of the film. The colors are strong and the picture is sharp with pleasing contrasts. The box lists a 90 minute running time, but it is closer to 93 minutes. The title "PRIMAL IMPULSE" is as meaningless as the tagline on the over-sized video box, which reads, "Ecstasy beyond passion. Possession beyond lust. It is the ultimate fulfillment."

...

And just as a little bonus addendum for some laffs, here's the full synopsis on the back of the box:

"Beyond Star Wars, military powers are already experimenting with the next battleground: mind invasion and control through space. With world dominance at stake, they'll stop at nothing. In the name of research, a young astronaut is deliberately abandoned on the moon during a space mission so the potential of his mental power can be tested. The fury he unleashes is beyond all expectations--his mental scream and death throes reach out to beautiful young European interpreter Alice Campos, taking control of her mind.

"The cruel deadly experiment she sees in her mind as a film flashback pales as she is engulfed by a frightening reality beyond the wildest of dreams. Psychological terror explodes with vivid new dimensions in the nightmare of primal impulse."

--MW