Closed Door Mystery:
Based on the French film, 8 Femmes (2002), the biggest attraction of this closed door Italian murder mystery, 7 Women And A Murder, is getting seven stars together in one mansion. The original had such divas as Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Fanny Ardant, a casting coup that is difficult to match, though the Italian remake has a fine ensemble cast too.
Directed by Alessandro Genovesi, the film (on Netflix) is set in country estate over the holiday season, when families gather together for a Christmas meal, Susanna (Diana Del Bufalo) arrives from Milan, and the rest of the family is introduced– her mother Margherita (Margherita Buy), grandmother Rachele (Ornela Vanoni), aunt Agostina (Sabrina Impacciatore), sister Caterina (Benedetta Porcaroli) and snippy new maid Maria (Luisa Ranieri).
When Maria takes breakfast up to the room of her employer Marcello (Luca Pastorelli), she finds him lying face down in his bed, with a knife in his back. The women are all shocked, but not particularly saddened by his death. Then, the seventh woman, Veronica (Micaela Ramazzotti) traipses in, claiming she got a call from the house, informing her of Marcello’s death. It turns out that she is Marcello’s long-time lover, which his wife Margherita is aware of and couldn’t care less. She is fed-up of his “snoring like a tractor” and plans to leave him.
There is a snow storm raging outside, and when they attempt to call the police, they find the phone line cut off; the car has been tampered with, the gate to the mansion is locked, and soon the power goes off too. It becomes obvious to the women that the killer if one of them. As the plot unfolds, it becomes obvious that all the women had a secret, and a motive to kill Marcello. Moreover, all of them had met him the previous night for their own purposes, and any of them could have killed him.
The film is based on a play, Huit Femmes by Robert Thomas, so the structiure is very much like a stage drama, with most of the action taking place on a single set, and not many entries and exits. More that the scary or mournful atmophere in the house when someone has been murdered, the script focusses on humour in the interactions between the women. Some of the wit seems to have been lost in translation, and the dubbing makes all the actresses sound weird.
It is hardly a story so enticing that a remake was required, however, the mystery is maintained till the very end, and the quiet orchestrator of the chaos turns out to be a character nobody suspected. Which is how it should be!
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
