Lisa and the Devil: Alfred Leone Productions Rating: USA: R/ UK: 18/ Australia: R
I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour now, staring at my monitor, watching the cursor flash, and trying to figure out just how to start this review. Truth be told, I’m still not really sure. I’ve just finished viewing Mario Bava’s (Bay of Blood, Rabid Dogs) 1974 film Lisa and the Devil—a film that while breathtaking in parts is also quite confounding in many areas. Rarely has a film left me so conflicted, so unsure of how I feel about it—and more importantly, so uncertain as to whether to endorse it as a masterpiece or trash it as a noble, but failed experiment in filmmaking. But, rather than bore you all to tears with my own inner torment, let’s just plunge in and see where we wind up.
Elke Sommer (Baron Blood) stars as Lisa, a young woman who finds herself lost in a large and imposing European city. Unable to find her way, she runs across a rich man (Eduardo Fajardo), his wife (Sylva Coscina) and their chauffeur (Gabriele Tinti). This unhappy trio (the wife, Sophia is having an affair with the chauffeur, George—and the husband knows it) offer Lisa a ride—which she willingly accepts. However, their car breaks down in front of a desolate old mansion—a house where a blind countess (Alida Valli) lives with her mentally disturbed son Max (Alessio Orano), and a manservant with a penchant for making mannequins who just may be Satan himself (Telly Savalas—who even sucks on a lollipop in this film).
During the night, Lisa will find herself trapped in a weird, dreamlike world while a series of vicious murders are committed around her. It seems that this isolated country house is haunted—not only by the ghosts of former tenants murdered in jealous rage, but also by a malignant madness itself.
Honestly, that’s about all there is to tell you about the plot. I suppose the narrative thrust of the film probably deals with the question ‘will Lisa survive?’ but frankly, it doesn’t really come across that way. Instead, Mario Bava has made a film that relies more on style and aesthetics than any kind of traditional narrative structure. Now, being a devoted fan of the Italian style of horror film, I’m well aware that the Italians often skimp on narrative in order to concentrate on creating a surreal, nightmarish atmosphere. However, not since Argento’s Inferno (a film that’s been known to confound more than a few people) have I ever seen a film that seems so devoid of any kind of traditional throughline. In fact, Lisa and the Devil makes Inferno look like a paint by the numbers kind of film.
However, the lack of a coherent narrative throughline isn’t necessarily a bad thing—provided that you’re a viewer with enough patience to accept that and soak up Bava’s stylish direction and revel in the ambiance and sense of menace he creates simply by moving the camera. Essentially, what it appears that Bava has done here is try to capture the Victorian style of horror novel on film—complete with its brooding atmosphere, odd pacing, and strange, almost dreamlike rhythms and imagery. It’s a noble effort, but the only problem is, the Victorian novels work as novels—mainly because we can get inside the heads of the mad characters or the terrified characters and gauge their mental reactions to the strange events transpiring around them. Film, on the other hand, is an action-oriented medium—any film that features shots of people thinking is doomed to fail because an audience can’t be privy to the internal monologues of the characters (unless, of course, you provide a voice-over, which isn’t something that happens here).
So, we wind up with a heavy, moody film with relatively little action for much of its running time. Oh sure, there’s murder and mayhem from time to time, but the whole lack of a cohesive narrative basically makes the film little more than a series of tenuously interconnected setpieces—and while each of them is beautiful, we can’t really connect with them in anything more than a cursory sense—which really distances us from the film.
Still, the confounding lack of a narrative aside, the film has this almost hypnotic power over its audience. Roughly half an hour in, I had little idea about where the film was going or what was happening, but I found myself compelled to keep watching. Bava seduces us with his visuals—almost making us forget that we have no idea what’s going on. Mario (who did some cinematography for Fellini) moves the camera with such confidence—alternating between subtle pans and bold zooms amongst other tricks—that we stay with the film, if for nothing else than to see what he’ll show us next. There are relatively few static point of view shots in this film—Bava lets his camera rove the set, providing temporary points of view from any of the actors’ perspectives, then moving off to provide one entirely its own—it’s a schizophrenic style, but since madness plays an important part in the film’s plot, it’s actually quite effective.
Bava also demonstrates a penchant for capturing people’s reflections in this film (it’s a technique that seems to recur throughout much of his work, but it’s quite noticeable here). Images reflected in mirrors, glass, spilled wine, etc. are all captured here—and the effect is unsettling.
Bava’s other trademark, his love of color, can be found here as well. The mansion itself is like a Technicolor nightmare—rooms and hallways painted in weird colors that highlight the mood of the scenes. The use of color here is pronounced and effective, but not quite as masterful as it is in Blood and Black Lace--a famous Bava giallo. And while we’re on the topic of the mansion—the production design itself is very impressive. Looking at the rooms, the hallways, etc. one can’t help but think of The Fall of the House of Usher and other works of Poe.
The film features one of those weird twist endings—one wherein everything that we were confused about only becomes even more confusing. Lisa’s identity, nay, her very existence, are called into question. Was she a ghost? Was the film a dream? Honestly, there’s no real answer—Bava gives us the film and leaves it for the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions—which isn’t entirely satisfying since we’re left in the dark for so much of the film that it becomes almost impossible to draw any kind of well-informed conclusion from what we’ve seen thus far.
Lisa and the Devil has been released on DVD, and the presentation is quite nice. My one major complaint is that the sound on the disc is very low—even with my TV turned all the way up, it was a struggle to hear. The film is part of Image Entertainment’s Mario Bava collection, and is placed on one disc alongside House of Exorcism—which is the same film, only recut with some added scenes to make it play like an Exorcist-style demonic possession flick (I’ll probably review that film in the near future—check back if you’re interested in a comparison, although, by all accounts, HoE is an inferior version). The disc itself features several trailers, a commentary with producer Alfred Leone and Elke Sommer (for HoE, not Lisa and the Devil) and a Mario Bava filmography—not too bad for a small company release. Image loves the fans and Bava—and it shows here.
As I mentioned above, I’m sort of torn over how to rate this film—there are two very distinct, very different ways of looking at it, and each is at least somewhat valid. However, since I’m a critic, I can’t wimp out and tell you to make your own judgment—you come to me to get an opinion, so here’s mine. Lisa and the Devil is a flawed film—it lacks a plot, mainly, instead trying to capture the essence of a Victorian horror novel on celluloid…which is a mistake since film and novels are vastly different mediums. But, if you’re a patient viewer, one who values mood and atmosphere in your genre films over buckets of gore and a predictable, cliché plot, the film might work for you. If you’re a film viewer who loves the visuals of film—the bravura camera movements, weird imagery, strange angles, etc. then this film is probably worth a rental. It gives you a lot to mull over with its concluding scene—and while you’ll never know for sure what was going on, you can have a good time postulating on it. If those kind of films bother you (or if you like a film where everything is presented to you, where the director basically lets you know what you should think and feel at the conclusion) then skip it—you’ll find the movie aggravating beyond words.
Ok, star rating time…The easy way out would be to give the film 3 stars, a middle of the road rating, and be done with it. I’m not gonna do that, though. I’m giving Lisa and the Devil four stars—because I do like a film that challenges me, and one where the director showcases a unique visual style. It’s not a perfect film, but it gets style points for trying to be different. If you’re in mood for something different than your standard horror film, give Lisa and the Devil a try—you just might like it.
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