Le orme (1975) Reviews

• Very interesting psychological thriller

  Industrious2002-07-02

  Footprints is a very interesting movie that is somewhat difficult to categorize. "Psychological thriller" is the most appropriate description I can think of. The female protagonist, Alice Cespi, discovers that she doesn't remember anything of the last three days. The only clue she has is a torn photo of a hotel. She is also haunted by a recurring, very vivid, dream about a science fiction movie that she believes she saw many years ago. In her pursuit of the truth behind her amnesia she doesn't trust anyone, but little by little it becomes obvious that she has visited the town where the hotel is located before. This is an exciting flick whose main virtue is that it is virtually impossible to predict how the events will unfold, and particularly, how it will end. The unusual loneliness of the main character and the unreliability of everyone else ensure that the good old paranoid feeling is present throughout the film, whereas beautiful colors and some spectacularly filmed sequences make this a visually attractive movie as well. The important part of the one and only Nicoletta Elmi, everyone's all time favorite redheaded obnoxious child star of Italian horror, is an extra bonus.

• Very Good Surreal Mystery

  novax672005-09-30

  This is actually a very good surreal mystery movie, despite the description that tries to sell it as a Sci-Fi movie. Balkan stars as a woman haunted by mysterious visions and lost memories that she is trying to piece together. She spends the majority of the movie trying to make sense of her visions. Very atmospheric and effective. It is true that Kinski does not appear very much in this film, but the staring actors are very good. There is only an English dubbed version available in the US, and the dubbing leaves something to be desired, but the actors do a very good job. The cinematography, by Academy Award winner Vittorio Storaro is excellent. An earlier Giallo by director Bazzoni, THE FIFTH CORD, is also excellent, and also lensed by Storarro.

• Highly recommended

  lazarillo2006-07-16

  This is why I love Italian gialli. Despite the somewhat true but nevertheless very tiresome claims that the Italian filmmakers are just rip-off artists, this one loose genre that only really had its heyday for a few years in the early 70's displays more originality and creativity than mainstream Hollywood films have in the last 20 years. (And some American fanboy directors like Quentin Tarantino have largely made their career by ripping THEM off).This film is not only unlike any other gialli; it's unlike any other movie I've seen. A woman (Florinda Bolkan) is haunted in her dreams by a long ago television show she saw of astronauts being left stranded on the moon. To relax she goes to an eerily deserted seaside resort town where she thinks she's never been , but where everyone seems to remember her visiting the week before. She gets more and more paranoid and confused. Meanwhile strange men in astronaut suits keep appearing. . . Unlike the typically hysterical-from-the-get-go gialli, this movie gradually creates a sense of paranoia and unease. It mixes dream, reality, memory, and the media (television) to the point where the viewer is left as disoriented as the troubled protagonist. The end is bound to be a little disappointing after the build-up, but it's pretty memorable too. While most gialli have an overabundance of characters, this movie is largely carried by Bolkan. Fortunately, she is more than up to the task. Bolkan was a Brazilian actress who, like Austrian beauty Marissa Mell, had a career that was often overshadowed by her personal life (and she probably didn't help this with her lesbian affairs and public claims of having been JFK's last lover). Unlike Mell though she was much more than just a pretty face and her talent can readily be seen in movies like this, Fulci's "A Lizard in Women's Skin", and the nunsploitation classic "Flavia, the Heretic". Klaus Kinski and the Ida Galli also put in brief cameos in the movie, and unfortunately so does young Nicoletta Elmi (who was kind of the Dakota Fanning of 70's Italian films--not a terrible actress but one that appeared in so many films you start to look forward to seeing her on the back of a milk carton). Director Luigi Bazzoni's first giallo "The Fifth Cord" just came out on DVD. Hopefully, this one won't be far behind. Snap it up if you like gialli or if just enjoy unique, well-made movies. Highly Recommended.

• Exquisite! Why was it forgotten?

  matheusmarchetti2010-06-28

  Yet another forgotten, but nonetheless spellbinding 70's horror, and easily among my favorites of the genre, and a very unique one indeed. On the same vein of Peter Weir's eerie "Picinc at Hanging Rock" and paying tribute to Alain Resnais's equally enigmatic "Last Year in Marienbad", the film deals with an unsolved mystery left open to interpretation, with a character from the modern world finding herself trapped in an ancient, enigmatic setting. Unlike most Italian horror films of it's time, this one has hardly any blood at all, and relies mostly on creating a claustrophobic atmosphere and the horror of the unknown prowling every corner. The suspense builds up slowly to a terrifying and ultimately saddening finale. The film has many important names in Italian cinema working on it, such Vittorio Storaro (visually, this is one of the genre's most jaw dropping works), underrated writer/director Luigi Bazzoni, composer Nicola Piovani and giallo queen Florinda Bolkan, all doing wonderfully in what they are set out to do. The latter gives a stunning performance in the lead role, and we identify with her so much that even when you know she's actually crazy, we can't help to believe what she believes, that Klaus Kinski and his assistants are using her as a guinea pig for their sadistic experiments. Another bonus are the B&W nightmare sequences of the astronaut being left to die alone on the moon, which are very disturbing and scary. These dream sequences mirrors the protagonist's desperation as she too is trapped in a setting of which she is unfamiliar with, or is she? It's these sorts of questions that Bazzoni asks the audience, without always giving as answers, something that, in my humble opinion, makes the horror of it all the more effective. Overall, 10/10.

• Low-key psychological sci-fi thriller with some nice footage.

  fetmenful2002-07-02

  Alice (Florinda Bolkan), a translator living in Italy, discovers that she has a memory loss and can't recall the last couple of days. She starts to follow a trace of memory fragments, which leads her to the small town of Garma. People in the town seem to recognize her and she's beginning to suspect that the re-occurring nightmares of astronauts conducting horrible experiments has something to do with her own amnesia. The movie is interesting and the plot is good, but it's a bit to slow moving and arty for my taste. The plot takes some nice twists and it's really hard to figure out where it's heading. Florinda Bolkan is good in her role (but even better in "Flavia the Heretic") and it's always nice to see "star" child actor Nocoletta Elmi. Klaus Kinski's role is too small though. This is not a movie for the die-hard gore hound or exploitation addict, but still a very nice hour-and-a-half mystery.