More than anything else writer/director Donato Carrisi's debut feature The Girl in the Fog is a well-acted, stylishly constructed piece, laden with a moody claustrophobic atmosphere. Ironically, since Carrisi is adapting his own novel and screenplay to the screen, I think the extended storyline, back end, seemingly over-weighted with twists purely for twists' sake, is one of the weaker aspects of the production, which is set in a remote town in the Italian Alps.
Local high school student Anna Lou, a 16-year old girl, disappears, feared kidnapped. High profile detective Vogel is called in from outside the region, to oversee the investigation. He is famous/infamous for creating a wide media coverage around the cases he investigates, inwardly hoping that the generated publicity will offer him clues to solving the cases, through the efforts of either journalists,or the public. However it is revealed quite early on in the piece that this strategy has had its failures in the past, where innocents, swept up in the media storm generated by some of these headline cases, have found themselves wrongly convicted and jailed. In this case before too long new-in-town local school teacher, Loris Martini, soon finds himself chief suspect, by both Vogel and a desperately hungry for grabs, media circus.
As in the vast majority of murder mysteries, the film presents us with a veritable 'menagerie' of odd or suspicious characters. Red herrings abound through a narrative primarily delivered through a series of flash backs, outlined by Vogel to a psychiatrist, Dr Flores, who (it's never really made clear) may be attached to the local police force. This brings me to an important point. Be warned. The Girl in the Fog belongs to the curious category of intellectually ephemeral films that, the more you reflect upon them, the more their logic falls apart. There are lots of things that aren't made very clear, from why Vogel seems really happy to confide in Flores, when he is under a certain amount of suspicion for a traffic accident resulting in a fatality, to why such an ethically dubious police officer, has managed to gain such a celebrated recognition. We also learn that Vogel is so quirky and unconventional that he harbours an enduring aversion towards DNA, forensics or any other scientific ephemera (you know, the stuff that investigators actually use to solve crimes). Roll with these unlikely contrivances and later exaggerated twists however and the narrative does present as intriguingly compelling, right to the finale.
The cast is solid, starting with Toni Servillo, as the morally bankrupt, but charismatic detective Vogel, always ready for that next talking head piece to the TV cameras. Blind-siding me a little in a good way, was seeing Frenchman Jean Reno turn up, speaking Italian this time, as the fishing - loving psychiatrist Flores. It isn't a large speaking role by any means, but is crucial to the complete telling of the story. Greta Scacchi is almost unrecognisable playing a retired journalist whose 30 year long obsession with an earlier serial killer case, causes Vogel to change his thinking somewhat on his present day investigation.
The finished tale gets high marks for style and cleverness, although certainly heavily drawn from familiar sources, right down to the continually seen scale models of the tiny alpine town where the action takes place. Audiences will be unlikely to miss plentiful references to works such as Twin Peaks, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and what looks like a very similar spooky building to The Overlook Hotel from The Shining, which we see in one long take, after the fog conveniently rolls back.
Local high school student Anna Lou, a 16-year old girl, disappears, feared kidnapped. High profile detective Vogel is called in from outside the region, to oversee the investigation. He is famous/infamous for creating a wide media coverage around the cases he investigates, inwardly hoping that the generated publicity will offer him clues to solving the cases, through the efforts of either journalists,or the public. However it is revealed quite early on in the piece that this strategy has had its failures in the past, where innocents, swept up in the media storm generated by some of these headline cases, have found themselves wrongly convicted and jailed. In this case before too long new-in-town local school teacher, Loris Martini, soon finds himself chief suspect, by both Vogel and a desperately hungry for grabs, media circus.
As in the vast majority of murder mysteries, the film presents us with a veritable 'menagerie' of odd or suspicious characters. Red herrings abound through a narrative primarily delivered through a series of flash backs, outlined by Vogel to a psychiatrist, Dr Flores, who (it's never really made clear) may be attached to the local police force. This brings me to an important point. Be warned. The Girl in the Fog belongs to the curious category of intellectually ephemeral films that, the more you reflect upon them, the more their logic falls apart. There are lots of things that aren't made very clear, from why Vogel seems really happy to confide in Flores, when he is under a certain amount of suspicion for a traffic accident resulting in a fatality, to why such an ethically dubious police officer, has managed to gain such a celebrated recognition. We also learn that Vogel is so quirky and unconventional that he harbours an enduring aversion towards DNA, forensics or any other scientific ephemera (you know, the stuff that investigators actually use to solve crimes). Roll with these unlikely contrivances and later exaggerated twists however and the narrative does present as intriguingly compelling, right to the finale.
The cast is solid, starting with Toni Servillo, as the morally bankrupt, but charismatic detective Vogel, always ready for that next talking head piece to the TV cameras. Blind-siding me a little in a good way, was seeing Frenchman Jean Reno turn up, speaking Italian this time, as the fishing - loving psychiatrist Flores. It isn't a large speaking role by any means, but is crucial to the complete telling of the story. Greta Scacchi is almost unrecognisable playing a retired journalist whose 30 year long obsession with an earlier serial killer case, causes Vogel to change his thinking somewhat on his present day investigation.
The finished tale gets high marks for style and cleverness, although certainly heavily drawn from familiar sources, right down to the continually seen scale models of the tiny alpine town where the action takes place. Audiences will be unlikely to miss plentiful references to works such as Twin Peaks, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and what looks like a very similar spooky building to The Overlook Hotel from The Shining, which we see in one long take, after the fog conveniently rolls back.