Barbara finally not only chose a foreign language film but chose the first film in this feature that I had not previously seen.  So both of our reviews are based on seeing this movie for the first time.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) is a hybrid police procedural / murder mystery, with little actual mystery since the murder takes place in the first scene and the killer’s identity is quite clear. There is mystery, however, and it involves who the murderer is, why he committed the crime, and if he will be able to get away with it, especially since he seems hell-bent on implicating himself at every opportunity.  I cannot recall any American film following a similar path, even while noting that over the years Hollywood films have become ever-so-slightly European, and vice versa.

Elio Petri’s film begins with a murder.  This is unexpected, even after the mysterious woman greets her amour with the line “How will you kill me tonight?”  The murder itself is subtle enough that it takes a few moments to confirm that this man has killed this woman.  Then the man (Gian Maria Volonté) walks around her apartment, lifting and touching most of her belongings, stepping into her blood and traipsing it around, and even purposely leaving clues for the police to find.  It is a mystery why this man would do these things, and he even meets and talks to somebody as he is leaving; surely he will be caught very quickly.

But maybe not, for he turns out to be a police inspector, the very man who would be overseeing this murder investigation.  It’s “would be” instead of “will” or “is” because the Chief, as he is known, is being transferred to head up the police’s Political Office, charged with keeping control of the district’s radical dissidents.  The Chief divides his time between his new assignment and revisiting the homicide division, where he prods his former investigators to follow the clues — even as they point toward him. This part of the movie is the most difficult to accept, as the Chief seems to actively be testing his investigators, but at the same time he doesn’t really want to be caught for his crime.  Psychologically, this duality is rather common in criminals, I believe, but for a man in his position, it seems positively crazy.

The Chief’s compulsions are at the center of the drama, and the mystery.  Did he really want to kill the woman, or was it an impulsive murder?  Reasons and factors leading to the killing are revealed as the story unfolds, in a series of flashbacks that detail the affair between the woman, Augusta Terzi (Florinda Bolkan), and the Chief.  Does he really want to be caught, or is is his conscience working against him?  It’s a little of both, I think, but I came to the conclusion early on that part of his plan, perhaps the most important element, is to test his detectives.  Seems to me that the Chief is very deliberately testing and challenging his underlings to come to a finding that goes against all of their training.  Nobody working under him would suspect their boss, a high-ranking police official, of a common murder, and he banks on that blind spot to serve as his main defense.  Due to the safety of his position he embarks on a campaign to test the limits of the law; he doesn’t hesitate to implicate himself, yet he appears to be completely innocent to the people conducting the investigation.  He even takes steps to push the investigation closer toward himself when it seems to be floundering.

Petri’s view of the police is not an inspiring one.  The investigators are all too happy to focus on traditional suspects, such as Terzi’s estranged husband (Massimo Foschi), who was nowhere near the scene of the crime, or the young student radical (Sergio Tramonti) who was also sleeping with the victim.  Anywhere but where the physical clues actually point (after all, the Chief was there at the crime scene afterward, and he must have touched everything during his visit, right?).  The police do not hesitate to bully suspects or slap them around, either.  They are seen as fascist, which was partly the view of the government at the time, and because this film is as much a satire as a straight drama.  Much of the satire, I fear, has been lost to time and the difficulty of cultural tastes, but it is clear that the film is setting up its bombastic, reactionary police force for a fall, at least in terms of this particular case.

And yet, another element against the police finding the Chief guilty of murder is the police hierarchy, which has no intention of displaying one of its own as a murderer.  No matter what the Chief has done, he is one of their own, and he will be protected, even from himself!  How this might happen is presented as the Chief’s daydream near the end, as he awaits the arrival of the police brass to determine what to do about him.  In his daydream he attempts to confess, but nobody wants to hear it; instead, they force him to confess his innocence, so that the status quo can be maintained!  It is a comic scene, absolutely riveting to behold, in which the Chief is beaten with his own shoe until he agrees to follow orders — followed by the actual arrival of his superiors.  The movie ends there, leaving it up to the viewer to decide just if and how the Chief will be punished.  The film’s perspective, however, is obvious; he will be protected.

This “double ending” increases the ambiguousness of the story, and was seen by the filmmakers as a necessary buffer against government censorship when the film was released in 1970.  By leaving the situation somewhat unclear, Petri avoided forcing the government to act against the film.  Many viewers, including myself, feel that the Chief’s daydream is the real, intended conclusion, and viewers can feel free to ignore the brief scene that follows it.  The daydream is also a better satirical conclusion.

Numerous flashbacks dramatize the kinky romantic relationship between the victim, Augusta Terzi, and the Chief.  Terzi is a beautiful but bored woman who finds thrills with the Chief recreating photographs of infamous murder scenes and then photographing them with herself as the victim.  Names, dates and locations of notorious killings serve as the common method of communication between them — including details regarding positions of the bodies and things only he would know after investigating such crimes, tidbits of information which thrill her as much as recreating the photographs. Sex and death are inextricably linked in their affair; she is fascinated by death and he is all too happy to describe how the police investigate it.  She pushes him to act “above the law” and leads him to begin to believe that he is, indeed, a citizen above suspicion because of his position on the police force.

Her murder at the beginning of the story is, of course, shocking, but the flashbacks reveal that in certain ways, she is asking for it.  One should never blame the victim, yet when Terzi begins to humiliate him regarding his sexual prowess, cheat on him openly and then ask “How will you kill me tonight?” her imminent death should not, perhaps, be surprising.  Petri’s film does a great job illuminating how human nature reacts to humiliation, jealousy, fear, intimidation, violence and, yes, suspicion.

For many people, especially those in Italy in the early 1970s, when political worries were manifest in the streets, this film is about much, much more than some official who kills a woman.  While Petri’s film is satirical, it also confronts governmental abuse and tyranny head on; it is no accident that the Chief is transferred to the Political Office.  When a bombing occurs the police round up hundreds of radicals as suspects, just because they are radicals, and one of them is Antonio Pace (Tramonti), the student who was sleeping with Augusta Terzi, and who saw the Chief at the apartment soon after the murder.  He is questioned, and tortured, along with other people whom the police want to muzzle and control.  There is probably a great deal of politically-oriented subtext and meaning here that I missed, or went over my head on this first viewing.  I cannot speak to the film’s value as a political statement, other than appreciating Petri’s satirical tone, especially during the Chief’s big speech about how the police must repress everyone that opposes them.

The Chief even goes so far as to give a plumber (Salvo Randone) key evidence and ask him to turn it in to the authorities.  The plumber does not understand, and while he does what the Chief asks, he refuses to identify him at the police station. Again, here is human nature at work, with someone unable to do the simplest thing to extricate themselves from a bad situation because he fears the situation will only get worse if he opens his mouth.  Ultimately, I feel the film confirms that human nature will return to its most basic parameters under pressure: the kinky woman fascinated by death will eventually be murdered; the plumber afraid to do anything will be punished for doing nothing; the policeman who murders will eventually be caught, but perhaps not be punished for his deed.

Is the Chief suffering from a guilty conscience?  I do think it nags at him, and helps to spur his self-incrimination.  I’m not sure that guilt is his prime motivation, but it is certainly a factor.  Other viewers may believe that the Chief is only testing the moral boundaries of his social position so that he knows, in the future, what he may or may not do.  I don’t buy that argument, for if he commits another murder and again leaves clues behind the coincidence would be too great for anyone to ignore.

This was a highly honored film upon its release.  It won several international awards, as did director Elio Petri and lead actor Gian Maria Volonté.  The film boasts a unique Academy Award history as well.  It won the 1970 award for Best Foreign Language Film, then was nominated the following year for its screenplay (having enjoyed an American run in 1971).  It remains the best known work of Elio Petri and his star, and is synonymous, along with other films like Z and State of Siege, in documenting the troubled coexistence of authoritarian governments and the people oppressed beneath their rule.

Is Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion a classic?  Undeniably.  It is a film that, until recent years, I do not believe a Hollywood studio would be capable of making, much less releasing.  I’ve never quite seen anything like it.  It combines sex and violence and political intrigue like an explosive device that must be detonated by character — in this case the character of the Chief.  While it is a product of a somewhat unfamiliar culture, and told in a different language, it is still thoroughly understandable and effective because of its comprehension of the universality of human nature (and oppression).  It is somewhat dated, both in its political leanings and its modest sexuality, yet its essence is timeless.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  22 March 2015.