The Mystery of Oberwald

The Mystery of Oberwald (Italian: Il mistero di Oberwald) is a 1980 Italian drama film written, directed, and edited by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Monica Vitti, Paolo Bonacelli, and Franco Branciaroli. Based on the play L'Aigle à deux têtes (1946) by Jean Cocteau, the film concerns a man who breaks into the castle at Oberwald to kill the queen but faints before doing so. The man's physical resemblance to the murdered king leads to a strange turn of events.[1] The Mystery of Oberwald received the Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists in 1982.[2]

The Mystery of Oberwald
DVD cover
Directed byMichelangelo Antonioni
Produced byAlessandro von Norman
Written by
Starring
Music byGuido Turchi
CinematographyLuciano Tovoli
Edited byMichelangelo Antonioni
Distributed byCidif
Release date
  • 3 September 1980 (1980-09-03) (Venice Film Festival)
  • 3 September 1981 (1981-09-03) (Italy)
  • 30 September 1981 (1981-09-30) (USA)
Running time
129 minutes
CountryItaly
West Germany
LanguageItalian

Plot

During the nineteenth century, a young radical poet named Sebastian (Franco Branciaroli) breaks into an old dilapidated castle in Oberwald on a dark stormy night intending to kill the queen and free his country. The queen (Monica Vitti) has been in mourning for ten years for her husband the king who was assassinated on their wedding day. Sebastian, who faints before he can kill the queen, is the spitting image of the assassinated king. Sebastian and the queen talk, and the queen discovers that Sebastian once wrote a subversive poem that she liked, even though it was attacking her. The queen dares Sebastian to kill her, otherwise she vows to kill him.

Cast
  • Monica Vitti as The Queen
  • Paolo Bonacelli as Count of Foehn
  • Franco Branciaroli as Sebastian
  • Elisabetta Pozzi as Edith de Berg
  • Luigi Diberti as Willenstein
  • Amad Saha Alan as Tony, the manservant[3]

Music

In the soundtrack are included some famous classical music pieces:

Reception

Upon its theatrical release, The Mystery of Oberwald received generally negative reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described it as "a movie that probably wouldn't last five minutes in front of an audience in control of its wits and with no more than a passing interest in Art for its own sake."[4] Canby concluded: "The only thing that makes The Mystery of Oberwald bearable is watching the Italian director's attempts to use video color techniques that are supposed to make more dramatic a fairly conventional narrative."[4]

On the review aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 57% positive rating from critics based on 7 reviews.[5]

Awards
  • 1982 Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon[2]

See also

References
  1. "The Mystery of Oberwald". IMDb. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  2. "Awards for The Mystery of Oberwald". IMDb. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  3. "Full cast and crew for The Mystery of Oberwald". IMDb. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  4. Canby, Vincent (September 30, 1981). "Antonioni's 'The Mystery of Oberwald'". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  5. "The Mystery of Oberwald". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
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