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Film: The Devil’s Game: The Venus of Ille (I giochi del diavolo: La Venere d'Ille)
Year: 1981
Director: Lamberto Bava and Mario Bava
Writer: Lamberto Bava and Cesare Garboli
Starring: Daria Nicolodi, Marc Porel and Fausto Di Bella
Review:
This was a film that I heard about on a podcast. Looking at Letterboxd, it looks to be my buddy Mr. Parka who checked this out. I decided to watch this for Italian Horror Month as I was setting up a Mario Bava double feature. It also doubled as an Odyssey through the Ones as well. What made this easy was that I found it available for rent on Amazon Prime.
Synopsis: A wealthy landowner uncovers a bronze statue of Venus on his property. He asks an antique expert to examine the statue and confirm its wealth. Upon arrival, the expert is stricken with love by the landowner’s daughter-in-law who bears an uncanny resemblance to the statue.
We start this out with workers for the landowner digging up a tree trunk. It is proving to be difficult and one of them notices a hand. They believe it belongs to a body. The owner is called Signor De Peyrehorade (Mario Maranzana). He soon discovers that this is the hand of a statue. They go about getting it dug up and use horses to stand it up. The first sign of bad luck, it falls on to a worker’s leg, breaking it.
The statute is of Venus. Signor De Peyrehorade is elated, even though it hurt one of his workers. He has the statue placed on his property for display and calls Matthieu (Marc Porel) to assess its worth. He wants this done ahead of his son’s wedding. His son is Alfonso (Fausto Di Bella) and he’s set to marry Clara (Daria Nicolodi).
Matthieu shows up too late that first day to see the statue so he will stay in the villa of De Peyrehorade. He sees Clara and falls in love with her. He then oversleeps and Signor De Peyrehorade doesn’t want him to see the statue without the best light, which is the morning. Matthieu does catch a glimpse when they ride by. When he finally gets the chance to examine at it, he starts to draw it but can’t capture it. He also starts to draw Clara. Both are eerily similar.
There are things we are given where Alfonso isn’t faithful, having affairs with women in Paris, Maria (Diana De Curtis) and my guess, others. There is a moment where he takes the ring for Clara, puts it on the statue while he plays what looks like tennis. He forgets about it. The wedding for Alfonso and Clara then happens, but he cannot give her his grandmother’s ring. When he goes to get it from the statue, it won’t come off. Matthieu is also haunted by images of this sculpture. Other weird things start to happen as well, things that are unexplainable.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start then is that this is an interesting ‘film’ to select. It is a feature length film that is part of an anthology television show. I’ve seen ones like Dario Argento from Door into Darkness and Masters of Horror. What is fun here is that this sounds like one of the last things that Bava directed and he did with his son, Lamberto. Then starring Nicolodi, who was the longtime partner to Argento as well as the mother to his children, it comes full circle.
Now that I’ve set it up, we have this story based on a novel by Prosper Mérimée. I did a brief read over for a synopsis for the source material to see how this adaptation is different. There does seem to be more that this statute does, where this leaves more to the imagination. Since we are given this in a visual media, they can go more dreamlike and use nightmare logic as well. There were little things with the performances by Nicolodi and Porel that had me wondering things, but that doesn’t get fleshed out. That was a slight issue I had, but I do think this is an interesting concept that is presented by the Bavas.
There are two worlds here that are coming together. The De Peyrehorade family are rich. The Signor seems like a nice guy, but he has hubris in how excited he is about this statue. It does seem like a sign since Clara insisted that her and Alfonso get married on Friday, which according to this is the day of Venus. There does seem to be a slight hint at the wealth of the De Peyrehorade family that allows them to get away with things. Signor isn’t as upset as he should about this working being maimed, to the point where he will always have a limp. Alfonso is a seducer, having affairs with multiple women. This story is ultimately getting his comeuppance for it.
Then on the other side we have Clara, Matthieu and the villagers. She is in love with Alfonso. She isn’t the only one though either. Matthieu does fall in love with her at first sight. He then sees her image in the statue. He has a meeting with it in the woods where he thinks he kisses Clara. She isn’t there afterwards, but the statue is. I do love this idea of a cursed statue, explaining why it was buried where it was. There is more that could be done with the concept, but with the story runtime, it is instead more of an E.C. comic feel.
There are a couple things that carry this. The first is the acting performances. Our two leads here are good. Nicolodi has this dreamlike look about her. She conveys that she loves Alfonso. There is something about Matthieu though when she sees him. It almost felt like they met somewhere before and had something, but it was too late. I love that they feel so credit to them both. Porel also adds this interesting aspect that he’s in love with this statue, partially because it looks like Clara. Di Bella is good as Alfonso. He portrays that ‘playboy’ way of going about things. Clara seems to notice and has a hint of jealousy. Adriana Innocenti and Maranzana work as his parents. Other than that, the rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed.
All that is left then is the other aspect that helps this is filmmaking. There is a dreamlike atmosphere over everything. I wouldn’t say that there is a hazy focus or anything like that. It is set in the past, but not too distant. There is almost a timeless feel there. Then as different people fall in love with this statue, for different reasons, it just builds a surreal atmosphere that I liked. The framing was also good and I’d say that the soundtrack helped to build it as well.
In conclusion, this tells a solid story in a 68 minute runtime. It feels like an episode of like Tales from the Crypt or other anthology television shows where we have something that is set up, then we see how it affects the characters around them. The atmosphere is good here. That is set up by how this is shot and framed. The soundtrack helps to build on it as well. I’d also say that the acting from Nicolodi and Porel was good with the rest of the cast to push them to where they end up. This is perfect for the confines that they’re working within.
My Rating: 7 out of 10