In A Lonely Place | Film Review

in-a-lonely-place-posterIn A Lonely Place (Italy - 2016) is a psychological thriller with horror veins, Davide Montecchi's debut feature. The direction impresses from the first sequences with its elegance, as does the refined photography (Fabrizio Pasqualetto) that seems to envelop the decadent location and the two protagonists in a timeless dimension.
The result is a poetic, almost surreal vision of a deviant love, Thomas's for Teresa. Her first words, spoken obsessively, are "I love you so much." This phrase resonates like an echo in the bare room of a disused hotel, leaving clues for a story about loneliness and love but also about morbid attachment to a loved one and feeling different.

Plot: Thomas (Luigi Busignani) has secretly loved Teresa (Lucrezia Frenquellucci) for as long as he can remember. One day he invites her to join him at his family's abandoned hotel for a photo shoot. Here he plans to give her a special gift.

in-a-lonely-place3The soul of In A Lonely Place is the relationship between two different individuals (he in love and she, on the other hand, does not know what love is) and about its evolution within a location as bare as the souls of the protagonists themselves but quite predisposed, just as they are, to receive "change." Indeed, the roles reverse, change, until they reach what is the goal for the protagonist: to bring his beloved to accept herself, to help her understand who she is, and to make her reach her true essence through an agonizing and painful journey.

in-a-lonely-place2All this, however, happens too slowly. The long tracking shots, the panning shots, the very slow camera movements, the several close-ups to the faces of the protagonists illuminated by dim light are, no doubt, indicative of a good knowledge of the means.
In A Lonely Place is an elegant and well-edited psychological thriller that nevertheless becomes, as the story continues, very soporific. Obsessively repeated sequences and phrases undermine the film's success by making it monotonous and, in some ways, irritating (the protagonist's sudden screams for example), and continuing to the end of the viewing becomes almost torture.

Thus, one has the feeling of viewing a film that has been forcibly extended to a feature-length film also due to a script (Davide Montecchi and Elisa Giardini) that is quite diluted. Therefore, In A Lonely Place turns out to be more of an exercise in style for its own sake but still marks a good debut for Montecchi.
Horror fans may not like it.

Luigi Busignani's performance is remarkable.
The original music by Andrea Felli, in keeping with the film, is also sophisticated.

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Barbara Torretti
Barbara Torretti
Editor and moderator of the DarkVeins community. Passionate about horror cinema, I also do reviews and interviews pertaining to the film, music and art circuit.

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