Passport for a Corpse

I recently got the chance to watch this one, which is usually packaged as a crime thriller, yet is also quite effective as a horror film. I consider this film one of the two best Gariazzo films I've seen so far, the other one being "La Mano Spietata delle Legge." Alberto Lupo plays a criminal who, with a partner, attacks a van loaded with bank notes. During a shootout with the guards, his partner is killed, and Lupo tries to make it over the French border by hiding in a coffin. Unexpectedly, he ends up being trapped in an icy cold morgue. This film has some powerful moments, and really displays Lupo's acting talents. I never thought Lupo was a very good actor until I saw this film, which showed me that I had been wrong. As well, this is a wonderful debut for director Mario Gariazzo. With an almost non-existent cast, Gariazzo concentrates almost entirely on Lupo's predicament, and we feel his desperation as the tension builds to a climax. The English-language print of this film is supposed to be cut pretty deeply, but the version I saw was the uncut Italian release.

The plan was perfect, but events fell out wrong. Most of the men who took part in the heist were caught. Erno Crisa and Alberto Lupo got away, but. But Crisa was shot and died. That left Lupo with a lot of money. If they can get over the border, he explains to lover Helene Chanel, they'll be free with the money they got. She's to go to aninn on the French side of the border and wait for him. He tries to make it over the mountains, but the patrols are too alert. He winds up in the border patrol office, with a corpse in a coffin. So he gets the corpse out of the coffin, and climbs into the coffin himself.

The copy I looked at was not very good, and there's a tremendous amount of voice-over work to tell us Lupo's thoughts. Still, Mario Gariazzo 's movie about desperation is very compelling, with elements of horror, desperation, and self-mutilation combining very well. The chill of death permeates a lot of scenes, and the snowy ending is bleak and telling.