The Films of Lorenzo Bianchini
(We are currently hosting trailers for the two films discussed here. Links can be found here.)
The Italian film industry, so proudly innovative through the sixties and seventies, has been in a shambles for decades now. Funding dried up, the old masters stumbled, and the next generation of Italian genre film makers, strangely, simply never appeared leaving a gaping void as Bava, Fulci, Argento, et al slowed down or began working elsewhere. Once the leader Italy hasn’t even been a player for most of a generation, but there are signs that this is changing. While it remains to be seen whether they are up to the challenge the creators of Bumba Atomika certainly talk a good game and are openly striving to take up the vacant Italian genre crown. Another sign of hope comes from young Friulian film maker Lorenzo Bianchini – Friulia being the region around Udine in northern Italy which boasts its own distinct dialect and regional flavor.
Hardly known outside of his own region Bianchini is beginning to turn heads with a pair of ultra low budget features now being made available on English subtitled DVD by Centro Espressioni Cinematographiche, a new imprint established by folk associated with the Udine Far East Film Festival specifically to make Bianchini’s films available. Though his filmography is small and Bianchini is still obviously learning and growing in his craft his raw talent in undeniable.
Bianchini’s 2001 feature, Lidris Cuadrade Di Tre (The Square Root of Three), is the story of a trio of slackers on the verge of flunking out of school. Knowing they’ve just failed the math test that will put them over the edge the trio decide to break into the school, steal the failed tests before they are marked, and replace them with corrected version. The trio get more than they bargained for, however, when they stumble across a Satanic cult that meets in the basement of the school and are targeted to become human sacrifices.
The 2004 feature Custodes Bestiae is an entirely more adult affair that casts the lead of his previous film as a journalist slated to interview an art historian who claims to have come across a major discovery based on clues found in old photographs and a sixteenth century church fresco he was restoring. But before the historian can spill the details he is spirited away by shadowy figures who leave a burnt in hand print on his door, leaving the journalist to reconstruct his work with only the photographs and fresco as clues along the way. The film builds into an oppressive, paranoid thriller revolving around an ancient church scandal and a four hundred year old cult that may very well still be active.
Though Bianchini’s work very much shows the limitations of his tiny budgets, limited in scope and shot on mid-low grade digital video with minimal lighting design, he clearly understands how to manipulate mood and tone and is a very smart writer. His compositions and editing are strong, he’s not afraid to lay on the blood when needed but also smart enough to know when what isn’t seen will be more effective than what is, and the growth in characterization and plot complexity from his first film to his second is remarkable, very clearly marking Bianchini as a talent to watch. If Lidris captures a raw talent, then Custodes shows that talent coming fully into its own and now if someone would just give this man a decent budget to work with – it wouldn’t need to be much, just enough to shoot on film with a decent lighting crew – he has the potential to turn out something truly spectacular.
