Strange Deception1951

A top-prize winner at the Cannes and Berlin festivals, this striking drama (originally known as THE FORBIDDEN CHRIST) is largely forgotten today. But it survives, fortunately, as a unique bridge between Italy's postwar neorealist cinema and the more stylized, philosophical and personal cinema auteurs like Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni would soon bring to international audiences. Virile Raf Vallone plays Bruno, newly returned to his Tuscan birthplace after years spent in a Russian POW camp. What should be a happy homecoming is tempered by his grim determination to wreak vengeance on whoever betrayed his partisan brother to fascist assassins. It seems everyone (even Bruno's long-suffering mother) knows the identity of that traitor but none will tell him. The film is largely a series of vignettes in which he reunites with and questions fellow villagers, often engaging them in searching, somber conversations about religion, poverty, guilt and justice. When, at last, Bruno's quest is fulfilled, it is not remotely resolved in the way that he'd anticipated. This was the only feature written/directed (and, curiously, also scored) by Curzio Malaparte, a controversial, esteemed Italian author and intellectual whose work was at various times condemned by both Bonito Mussolini and the Vatican. With its noirish lighting and enigmatic narrative, STRANGE DECEPTION is a work of art suffused with the deepest post-WWII disillusionment and pessimism. - Dennis Harvey