Cemetery Man (1994)
Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 (720x576) | 01:38:53 | 6,81 Gb
Audio: English, Italian - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each track) | Subs: Italian SDH, English SDH
Genre: Comedy, Horror | 7 wins | Italy, France, Germany
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 (720x576) | 01:38:53 | 6,81 Gb
Audio: English, Italian - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each track) | Subs: Italian SDH, English SDH
Genre: Comedy, Horror | 7 wins | Italy, France, Germany
This movie is based on a novel of Tiziano Sclavi, and it always reflects the "sclavian philosophy" diffused by the most succesful comics in Italy: Dylan Dog, the detective of the nightmare. There is the duality between love and dead (in Italian "dellamore" means "of love" and "dellamorte" means "of death"), a duality that Dellamorte feels in a really hard way. He is the guardian of the cemetery of Buffalora, a little town in the north of Italy, in which, we don't know why, corpses rise from tombs and Dellamorte has to destroy them. Dellamorte seems not to ask to himself why this happen, he shoots and loves. But at the end he wants to leave Buffalora…
IMDB
Martin Scorsese called Cemetery Man the best film of 1994. While I wouldn't quite agree—Pulp Fiction anyone?—I would put it pretty high. The problem is, any attempt on my part to explain the plot will make most readers think I am crazy for thinking it's so great.
Cemetery Man (1994)
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Rupert Everett, in his best performance, is the caretaker at a small Italian town's cemetery. He shares his duties with the idiot savant Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro), whose only language is affirmative and negative grunts. The inhabitants of the cemetery (not including those two) have a bad habit of returning to life within seven days of their deaths, and the caretakers have to off them again with shots or blows to the head. The film's first act lulls you into thinking that you're going to see a basic zombie comedy, albeit an above-average one. However, this film is anything but predictable, and director Soavi pulls the rug out from underneath you. Consistency is the last thing he's worried about.
Cemetery Man (1994)
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The pair seem content with their work, but something is missing. That thing is love. Both men find it, Everett in the form of the beautiful young widow (Anna Falchi) of an elderly gentleman and Gnaghi with the decapitated head of the mayor's daughter (Fabiana Formica). Unfortunately for Dellamorte, while he and the widow are making love on her dead husband's grave, he takes offense and digs his way out, biting her on the neck before Dellamorte is able to kill him with a headstone. She dies, and the grieving Dellamorte must face the prospect of having to kill her when she comes back.
Cemetery Man (1994)
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She comes back, and then again, and then again. The film's Italian title means "of death, of love." Is Dellamorte cursed to see his beloved over and over, and to always have the lie of eternal love thrown in his face? Or has he become completely unhinged? A case can be made for either.
The movie has a satirical undercurrent that's easy to miss; I think this is where the film is most intelligent. It's a scathing look at all the obsessions of the 1990s that veers from the ridiculous to the sublime. It deals with the obsession with safe sex in a comical scene in the ossuary. It skewers the annoying absolutist-relativist idea espoused by many students who've heard something about postmodernism—the idea that any form of judgment is bad—with Gnaghi's vomit and a young girl's assertion that she can be eaten by anyone she wants to be eaten by. Dellamorte's own version of 1990s morbid anomie is sheer genius: he tracks the demise of the village by crossing names out of the phone book; his hobby is to attempt to reconstruct a skull; and he can have deep philosophical conversations on the phone with his best friend, but in person they're barely civil. In a decade of dead-end employment, his job is to kill the dead.
Cemetery Man (1994)
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Ok. If you're still reading, let me try to explain myself. The film is more than a comedic gore fest (although it is the best of the lot). It is also a rueful mediation on life and death and love, on the lengths to which lonely people will go to find happiness, and on being content with what we have. It is filled with gorgeous camera work by Mauro Marchetti, including one perfect shot of Everett facing a statue of death while silhouetted by broken angel wings. It contains wonderfully wry dialogue for people familiar with Everett's usual work. It is a perfect balance of comedy and tragedy, with gibbering zombies thrown in for the ride. It's a flesh-eating, existential take on modern society's steady move toward individual lives that are insulated entirely from direct human contact. It's both a satire of empty 1990s angst and a profound examination of the causes of that angst. I cannot say enough about this film, but I will stop before I start repeating myself.
Cemetery Man (1994)
Special Features:
- Behind The Scene
- Italian Audio Commentary (w/o subs)
- Trailer
Cemetery Man (1994)
Many Thanks to franco8102.
No More Mirrors.