Amer

The giallo is indigenous to Italy - it somehow seems to embody the culture with its emotion, passion and flare, as well as with its conservative religious undertones of guilt and innocence. The giallo is an opera of sex and violence and Italian filmmakers created and perfected this form before it ultimately died out in the late ‘70s.

Amer is a French-Belgian co-production whose title translates to "bitter." Directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani have crafted a modern-day homage to Italian gialli that is at once derivative and original. It is a visually stunning dream fugue of a film that will captivate with evocative imagery and possibly frustrate some viewers with its lack of character and narrative. Amer takes a black gloved switchblade to the giallo formula and slices out all the expository and character scenes, leaving only the stylistic excesses and psychological underpinnings. 

The film focuses on three events in the life of the protagonist, Ana, at three different life stages: child, teenager and adult. As a child, Ana lives in a seaside villa that, despite its outward beauty, exudes a darkness and menace. The viewer is shown the house and Ana’s family life through her young eyes, literally. The film tells us that we will be seeing this world through Ana’s eyes from the opening shot – a triple split-screen close-up of Ana’s eyes looking at the viewer. Watching eyes seem to be everywhere in Amer, and everywhere Ana looks she sees something sinister. The house is populated with strange, shadowy figures, mysterious noises, eyes peeping through keyholes, the corpse of her dead grandfather, and a grandmother who appears to be a witch.

In the next sequence Ana is a teenager out on a trip from the villa into a nearby town with her mother. Ana is now becoming a woman and she senses that the watching eyes are not just mysterious or sinister eyes but have now become the leering eyes of men on the streets and in the shops. The third and final sequence brings the story to a thrilling conclusion. Ana is now an adult and returning to the villa where she grew up. The dreamlike atmosphere continues – she walks from the train station through a town that is deserted in the middle of the day. The eyes looking at and menacing Anna continue to surface throughout this final sequence until it builds to a crescendo of suspense and violence.

Amer plays with extreme close-ups and enhanced ambient sound to build the surreal atmosphere throughout each sequence. The loud clicking of locks or the sound of a black glove being pulled over a hand replace dialog as the most important elements of the soundtrack. In fact, there are only about 3 sentences of dialog in the entire 90-plus minute film. The appropriation of classic giallo soundtrack music from Stelvio Cipriani, Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai works surprising well and is not used gratuitously.
The story is not complex and the characters are merely ciphers for the psychological drama that unfolds. However, the visuals that Cattet and Forzani present, and the fever dream atmosphere they create through both sight and sound are enthralling by themselves. I found myself thinking that this is what a giallo would look like if it had been made by David Lynch. It is best to experience this movie as a waking dream and just sit back, leave logic behind and experience this visceral dream and the nightmarishly beautiful images with your eyes and your mind wide open.

--TF