Dir. Aldo Lado
When the young daughter of Venice based sculptor Franco is heinously murdered, he and his estranged wife begin an investigation to track down the killer. Meanwhile the body-count continues to grow as the crazed maniac bloodily dispatches anyone who strays too close to discovering the truth about their identity.
Set in Venice and featuring the story of a grief-stricken family crippled by the death of their child, Who Saw Her Die? is in many ways uncannily similar to Nicolas Roeg’s startling masterpiece Don’t Look Now, which was released only a year after. Opening with the shockingly frank and brutal murder of a little girl on a snowy mountain in France, Lado’s film pulls no punches, however while its central mystery constantly intrigues as it twists and turns unendingly, it never really manages to repeat the power of this opening scene. Focusing on Franco’s obsession with finding his daughter’s killer, the film unfolds as in typical giallo fashion, with red-herrings galore, a convoluted and serpentine plot, expertly staged murder sequences and the revelation of the killer coming out of nowhere.
Director Lado was born in Venice, and he films it through the eyes of someone who is intimately familiar with its labyrinthine alleyways and canals. He builds a dank atmosphere of dread and depicts the city as a crumbling, damp and inherently sinister place full of faded beauty and grandeur. The film subverts the usual connotations of water with cleansing and purification and instead associates it with death. This is nicely evoked in a number of moments, such as when Roberta is given a necklace with the astrological symbol for Aquarius on it, prefiguring the discovery of her body in the canal, and what with it being set in Venice and all, there really is no avoiding water. Lado utilises his locations well and Who Saw Her Die? boasts some incredible camerawork, particularly evident in the set piece involving four characters locked in a taut game of cat and mouse in a warehouse which exhibits a dizzying and Escheresque warped logic.
Despite the heart-aching subject matter, Who Saw Her Die? is a strangely unemotional film. Even though we follow Franco’s desperate attempts to find out who murdered his daughter, and it is he who is the anchor and focus of the film, his pain and turmoil is never really expressed sufficiently. George Lazenby delivers a coldly detached performance that seems to compliment the unfeeling and frigid mood of the film, while Anita Strindberg, so compelling to watch in Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, delivers a similarly detached performance. The doomed Roberta is portrayed by Italian horror stalwart Nicoletta Elmi, whose impressive film work includes roles in such genre classics as Demons, Deep Red, Baron Blood, Flesh for Frankenstein and Bay of Blood. Their family unit is already fractured prior to their daughter’s death and it is only through her death that Franco and Elizabeth reunite. Their reunion is a cold one and the scene depicting it is rather austere and contains no passion or warmth. A simple but beautiful overhead shot depicts them lying side by side; Elizabeth has tears rolling down her face, Franco has his back to her. Their reunion suggests impassivity and bleak resignation, two lost souls clinging to eacvh other because they can't bear to be alone. Had the performances been rawer and more emotional, Who Saw Her Die? would have been a film with incredible power.
An unsavoury undercurrent flows throughout proceedings, as most - if not all - of the adult male characters appear to have a dubious interest in Roberta. A number of awkward moments occur as they gaze at her a little too longingly… This is of course Lado’s attempt to establish red herrings and cast suspicion on everyone, and the effect is highly sinister. The child’s murder is revealed to be the latest in a string of murders of other young girls who all had red hair and a strange woman dressed in black mourning clothes and veil is seen nearby. She is a haunting, striking and formidable sight. Flashbacks lace the narrative, as do sinister point of view shots filmed from under the dark veil as the killer closes in on each victim. Close-up shots of the killer’s eyes behind the veil also glare from the screen with unsettling power. The flashbacks, which depict previous murders, convey the killer’s fractured mind, and their appearance comes without warning; they simply perforate the narrative momentarily; the jarring effect of which is highly perturbing.
Lado has a knack for creating pointedly political films, particularly as far as his gialli are concerned (also see Short Night of Glass Dolls – a stunningly filmed, fiercely original and deeply eerie giallo), and Who Saw Her Die? can be read as a barbed criticism of the Catholic Church. This reading of the film seems to be dispelled at the very end however, when the last line of dialogue reveals something about the killer that is not only random, but also feels tacked on and unnecessary. The moment undoes Lado’s seemingly scathing critique of The Church as a corrupt institution. The film really benefits from Ennio Morricone’s haunting score, which comprises of choral pieces featuring a cacophony of infantile voices echoing and interweaving. It immediately conjures the innocence of childhood and is shot through with an alarming urgency that becomes increasingly sinister, disorientating and panicked as the layers of voices increase. A potent and mesmerising bass line usually signifies the killer’s presence and the use of an organ adds an element of the ecclesiastical to events, which enhances Lado’s arguably scathing subtext regarding The Church.
In short, Who Saw Her Die? is not without its flaws, and one can only imagine how powerful it would be had its protagonists been portrayed with more emotional resonance, but it is still a striking, daring giallo, beautifully filmed and constructed, and a fantastic follow on from Lado's Short Night of Glass Dolls.
I recently wrote a feature called "Sketches of Venice in Red: A Comparative Glance at Who Saw Her Die? and Don’t Look Now."
It appears in issue 12 of Paracinema.
You can pick up a copy of it here.