Over
30 years after Ennio Morricone's
haunting harmonica theme in Once
Upon A Time In The West
first sounded, Morricone here conducts
another musical leitmotif forming
a film's narrative crux: Cesar Frank's
Sonata in A major. These notes will
cement a mysterious and unearthly
bond between a prisoner in a Northern
Italian fortress and the wife of
the captain sent to guard him.
The
Italian army has devised an elaborate
surveillance system for keeping
the prisoner in check without ever
actually seeing his face. He is
perceived merely as a large shadow
on the wall, until the captain's
wife starts playing the piano to
relieve the monotony of fortress
life.
Roberto
Petrocchi's film is a subdued, yet
gripping period tale of longing
and suppressed desire.
