Deadly Sweet (1967)

 

a.k.a. I Am What I Am

Director: Tinto Brass

Screenplay: Tinto Brass, Francesco Longo and Pierre Lévy-Corti

Based on a novel by Sergio Donati

Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant as Bernard; Ewa Aulin as Jane; Roberto Bisacco as David; Charles Kohler as Jerome; Luigi Bellini as Jelly-Roll; Monique Scoazec as Veronica Yassupova; Vira Silenti as Martha

Canon Fodder

 

Let's burn the mini-skirts...

Almost every director in the Italian genre industry, within its golden age, made a giallo, as with many of them making a western among other genres. There are rare cases, such as Dario Argento almost always staying to horror and giallo thrillers, but even those who developed trademarks like Enzo G. Castellari, the action specialist, made a giallo in Cold Eyes of Fear (1971) as a one off. Tinto Brass, who was more focuses in erotic drama even before his softcore run, did make a giallo too, and predating his two experimental films Attraction (1969) and The Howl (1970), he made Deadly Sweet. They are effectively siblings, despite Deadly Sweet being a straight forward film, from their lineage of experimentation. They share footage from each other, such as material here of Jean-Louis Trintignant running being used for an almost Jean-Luc Godard cameo gag in The Howl.

Also, because, whilst very much your traditional giallo, what Brass starts as a film slow in getting going eventually stands out for being an unconventional and inspired piece just for the technical bravado it has. Admittedly, as is a common aspect of this film genre, this is a giallo story which does get a bit convoluted. To summarise it, an actor Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) finds a contact he was meant to meet in a backroom of a club dead on the floor, a young woman Jane (Ewa Aulin) cowering in the corner, Bernard trying to find who is responsible whilst falling head over heels with Jane even if her life, including her relationship with her brother and step-mother, is a knotty one with secrets. Alongside an antagonist step-mother, a possibly incestuous relationship with her brother, and a group trying to get an incriminating diary and even kidnapping Jane at one point, Bernard is pulled into a complicated web.

Like many giallo, this is fascinating as a cultural hodgepodge, meant to be set in swinging London, with a French lead in Trintignant, Ewa Aulin Swedish, as an Italian post-dubbed genre film. Deadly Sweet to its credit among others, even before we get to the type of experimental tone Tinto Brass surprisingly brings to the table, is a compelling narrative. Jean-Louis Trintignant as your lead is inherently, even dubbed, a virtue for having such a compelling actor involved, able to still be seen as his own distinct figure as a performer even dubbed as this plays his character of Bernard as an everyman. He is a very sympathetic lead for a giallo, one capable of being hurt and caught off-guard but, when alert, is a resourceful figure among the trope of men who wander inadvertently into these types of mysteries. When the film has its lighter hearted moments, it is openly playful, whether the delightful sight of Trintignant bashing a drum kit or, within the same scene, doing a Tarzan yell and swinging off a rope. It is a little creepy Ewa Aulin's Jane is mean to be around sixteen or so, to the considerably older Bernard, but she is perfect as the figure that radiates an aura that entices him to her. Whilst one of the film's titles plays on a common trope, the femme fatale, Deadly Sweet to its credit is a lot more meaningful on this right to the bitter end.

It helps as well this film, even in the confines of a genre narrative, is where Tinto Brass's experimental work from this period is at its sharpest. This is a surprise, even after The Howl and Attraction show his experimental side, because of the knowledge of his later films in the erotica category where he restrained himself more. Here, even when the film feels its length, Deadly Sweet has some of the most striking moments you could actually find, avant-garde techniques brought in for drastic effect. Here, a contentious aspect of those two avant-garde films of his, using real footage of current events, works hereas it is footage of the Vietnam War in a newsreel within a cinema, not as extreme as in those works in their violent content where even a genre film entirely focused on its plot allowing him to nod to the real world. The frenzied nature of two of the scenes, using striking (if not suitable for everyone) avant-garde quick editing are two of the most incredible you can find in giallo cinema. One with Bernard being tortured for information on a diary of the initial murder victim, a vital clue, the other whilst being pursued when he is in seconds having to decide to flee into the London Underground. Even having scratched images for emphasis, this is incredible work to see.

Throughout there is a lot of style. From the music to its playful use of comic book illustrations for effect, this feels of the late sixties but is alive in its form. Even when the ending is a bleak one, for an obvious conclusion a viewer probably should have seen coming, it feels app for a film that, light hearted at times but also able to be serious, has felt like a rollercoaster. Deadly Sweet was a delight in mind to its creator's future, an argument positive of Tinto Brass' talents alongside his experimental side even existing.