Diabolik - Who Are You?

Kant Even

Diabolik - Who Are You?
aka Diabolik: Chi sei?
Directed by the Marretti Brothers
Italy/France 2023
RAI Cinema

Warning: Mild spoilers.

Okay… so I’ve been waiting a very long time to see the third part of the modern Diabolik trilogy. When I was waiting for the third one to come out on Italian Blu Ray back in early 2024, Kino Lorber in America announced they had struck a deal to distribute the films in America. Oh no, I thought. I hope that doesn’t mean the Italians will not put an English subtitle track on that third one as part of this deal. And, yep, they didn’t. Which I thought was a total sell out and left a lot of people who had been watching them on the imported Italian Blu Rays (in nice special edition boxes far better than how they’ve been released as in America) up the creek somewhat. And then my mode of thinking ran to… assume Kino Lorber bottle it and don’t give these films the major cinema releases they deserve in both the US and the UK, then I bet they just release them as a single set and I’ll have to buy the first two again just to catch up to the third. And… yes, that’s indeed what’s happened. So now I have a not so good looking three pack of the films with very few extras and nothing like the facsimile comics, etc, which came with my Italian editions. So that’s all a bit rubbish.

And a shame too because, now I’ve finally caught up to Diabolik: Who Are You? It turns out it’s the best of the three modern films (although, of course, nowhere near as good as the one by Mario Bava, reviewed here). Giacomo Gianniotte returns for a second go at the title character (after replacing the actor from the first part of the trilogy in the last movie, both reviewed here and here) and the astonishingly beautiful Miriam Leone returns as her third go at Eva Kant (almost but not quite rivalling Marissa Mell in the Bava version). 

Also back for this third one we have the brilliant Valerio Mastandrea as Inspector Ginko and, continuing as his secret, upper class girlfriend Altea de Vallemberg, we have the incomparable Monica Bellucci. Plus Pier Giorgo Bellocchio as Sergeant Palmer. 

And it’s fantastic, making up for the sluggishness of the last one by opening with a projected heist through the titles, where we see everything go right and Diabolik uses a handy gadget on his car to raise the chassis above the level of some bollards blocking his getaway…. 

But then we get to see what really happens when the plan is set in motion, when a ruthless bunch of murderous armed criminals crash the heist and take everything for themselves. We then see Diabolik and Ginko trying to find the criminals, both independently tracking them back to their lair and simultaneously being captured by them and locked in a cell together. So it’s up to their two women-folk to pool their resources and stage a rescue before Ginko and Diabolik are killed. Which gives us time to hear a little of Ginko’s back story and to get a long series of monochrome flashback sequences telling Diabolik’s origins, with flashes of red to highlight things like rubies and spilled blood… swiping a page from the Sin City movies and comics perhaps?

I loved this one and, once again we see Diabolik’s ruthless streak, ferociously demonstrated in the flashbacks with Andrea Arru and Lorenzo Zurzolo playing younger versions of the feral character… and we learn how a stuffed, black panther comes into play on the origins of Diabolik’s name. 

There are a lot more split screen techniques of different kinds in this one and the Marreti’s seem to be pushing the envelope on just how comic book the movie gets at certain points... plus there’s some especially nice mise en scène featuring an Alfred Hitchcock style overhead shot near the start of the movie. 

Another highlight, for me, was the inclusion of some female nudity in a scene with a stripper. I’ve no idea why they put that in to limit the audience who could see it but it’s the first time in any Diabolik media, it turns out, that nudity has been allowed… which apparently allowed it to survive much longer than it’s more lurid, contemporary comic books of the time. Apparently Diabolik and Eva even sleep in separate beds in the comics… something which Mario Bava wisely ignored, for sure. It’s the chemistry between these two characters which make the movies worth watching, as far as I’m concerned. 

And that’s me done on Diabolik: Who Are You? A long time coming to an English friendly format but worth the wait, I reckon. The best of the new batch, for sure.

Diabolik

Kant Buy
Me Love

Diabolik
Italy 2021
Directed by Antonio & Marco Manetti
RAI Italian Ltd Edition
Blu Ray Zone B/DVD Region 2 set

Warning: Very light spoilers.

So, after both the 1968 Mario Bava movie known in the UK as Danger Diabolik and an animated series, Diabolik returned to Italian cinema screens at the end of last year. Alas, it’s still not found an English distributor for either a UK cinema or home video release (or possibly even streaming, at time of writing) but I wanted to do this right so, rather than just watch a free HD copy online, I managed to acquire the new limited edition Italian Blu Ray/DVD set, which also comes with a replica copy of the third issue of the original fumetti, The Arrest Of Diabolik (on which this film is based, along with also taking material from a 2012 remake comic book of the same story) but, since I can’t read Italian to get the one detail about a certain jewel I wanted to know, I can’t work out whether a specific reference was put there by the Manetti Bros or if it was in the original version of the comic... or, indeed, if it’s just a coincidence (I’ll get to that possible reference in a minute).

The new film starts off with a very similar style opening to the Mario Bava version (reviewed by me here), to which the first time viewer will obviously compare it to, at least for a while. So the film is set in the late 1960s and we have Diabolik in his black Jaguar evading the police after a heist. It’s one of very few action sequences in the movie, actually and, I suspect, those who are not intrigued by the story and the absolutely wonderful performances of Luca Marinelli as Diabolik, Miriam Leone as Eva Kant and Valerio Mastandrea as Inspector Ginko... may find the lack of stunts and explosions etc a little disappointing. However, because the story is so strong... it’s an origin tale, of sorts, for the way that Diabolik and his future girlfriend Eve Kant first met... I found it absolutely absorbing from start to finish and didn’t notice the 2 hour 15 minute running time.

Okay, so I won’t say all that much about the plot but two things that caught my attention were the diamond and a section of the story involving an execution by guillotine. Okay, so the jewel that Diabolik is after from Eva Kant, which brings him to her door, is a very special pink diamond. So my first thought was obviously the specific diamond named The Pink Panther, which was the plot device of the 1963 film and which birthed the animated title sequence using a literal pink panther, thus giving kids all over the world a new hero when the title sequence character got his own cartoon show (which used to feature an Inspector Clouseau cartoon as its second half each week, if I remember correctly, both segments utilising Henry Mancini’s themes from The Pink Panther and A Shot In The Dark respectively). It’s a nice touch but I’ve no idea now if it was a deliberate reference or not, due to the dates being fairly close (if it did appear in that original fumetti).

The other thing I noticed which, judging from my look at the replica fumetti... since the first two thirds of this movie seem to follow it fairly closely (and so don’t blame the Manetti Brothers for eschewing action sequences, it looks like they are trying to do it fairly straight to the source material)... deals with the mistaken execution by guillotine of one of the characters who has been switched out at the eleventh hour, allowing Diabolik to escape justice. Now, I’ve read the first Fantomas novel from 1911, years ago and, honestly, it’s an absolute steal from that inaugural story but, of course, it’s not rocket science to figure out that the original character of Diabolik was blatantly inspired by the French master criminal.

So, okay, I had two slight problems with the movie. One is.... and I suspect this is endemic of the current state of Italian film production in general... that, although I’m sure a lot of money was spent on this new movie, there’s something about it that makes it look really cheap. Like it’s a TV movie or something. It all looks like it’s just been shot on a high res video camera and so doesn’t have that cinematic feel I was expecting from it (and no, I didn’t have the stupid motion smoothing setting on, thanks very much). However, once I got  used to it I managed to forget about it.

The other thing is... there are no real surprises in the film. Even though the narrative structure is deliberately built to hide information until certain things happen, I could pretty much second guess the entire movie. For example, during the first meeting between Ginko and Eva Kant, I realised that this was probably not Ginko at all... in which case, the same kind of fictionally heightened style masks used in the Mission: Impossible series and films was probably being used here and, yep, indeed it was.

However, when a film is put together this well, the lack of unpredictability is not that distracting... there are lot of other good things to grab your attention. Some of the frame designs, for example, are nicely done with the directors sometimes emphasising vertical patterns to echo the frames of a comic book... something which they do big time in the last third of the movie, which is basically a heist, much of which is made of dynamic, split screen compositions. I found it odd that they saved the use of split screen for only the last third of the movie but it works effectively for the sequence and was as good a solution as any other. There are also some sets of camera movements that are a little reminiscent of some modern horror movies, in that they’re designed to conceal rather than reveal elements of a scene before a particular story point is reached.

The comic strip style is further enhanced by details which you wouldn’t necessarily get away with in other forms of fiction in a credible manner. For example, the fact that Diabolik has managed to have a raising ramp built right into the middle of a street so he can take that route to evade the police, after making sure he gets boxed into the correct location. Hmm... yeah... don’t know how he would have managed to install that one without being seen. Also, the ears of the character protruding from either side of his mask (either that or his ears are also very tightly covered in latex) which would look really silly if not for the fact that they’re lit so well to hide any colour or texture change in the scenes where they are prominent. Also, Diabolik has a very strong widows peak, which echoes the open eyes section of his mask to remind you who he is when he’s not wearing his criminal costume (Ginko has a widow’s peak too).

The structure of the piece is good also. Like I said, no real surprises but there are a few sequences where conversations are cross cut with other conversations (often with one of the same characters) so the present of a character can be at counterpoint with a reveal needed to make more sense of a scene when it comes up later. Again, even though I’d figured out most of those reveals on this one way before they happen... mostly due to just thinking logically about the way what I was watching was unfolding... it’s a nice way of presenting the information and the two or three times where this is done in the movie adds to an overall ‘corporate style’ to the film.

I really liked the sexual chemistry between Marinelli  and Leone as Diabolik and Eva too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nowhere near as evident or blatantly expressive as the version of the relationship between John Philip Law and Marissa Mell’s versions of the characters in Bava’s movie but, the camera does still linger on the strength of their attraction to each other here as the glue which holds their relationship together... so that’s nice. I was worried they were going to shy away from that element here.

So it’s a shame, then, that due to the film’s release schedule being delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic, Marinelli is unable to reprise his role as the title character for the two sequels which are just winding up back to back production in Italy as I write this review. I hope the new guy they’ve got is able to at least match his, mostly emotionless and chilled performance here.

And that’s me done with the new Diabolik. I hope this one manages to find someone to give it a UK and US release because, frankly, our cinemas need more ‘shades of grey’ characters like this. This is a pretty good adaptation of the comics is my best guess, not to be compared to the Bava movie (which will always have the number one spot in terms of this character) but still doing something of its own with the material. And also... I love it whenever Diabolik throws his knife and the camera follows it at the same speed by keeping it in centre frame before we see who it killed (and, yes, I know it probably wasn’t captured like that but, that’s the impression it’s trying to create and it works really well, I think). Diabolik doesn’t need ‘bullet time’ when he has ‘dynamic dagger duration’ moments like this.

Danger Diabolik

Kant Get Enough

Danger Diabolik
aka Diabolik
Italy 1968
Directed by Mario Bava  
Paramount Blu Ray Zone A
 
Warning: Light spoilers.

I thought, in light of the reboot movie released in Italy recently, I’d revisit one of my favourite comic book movies, Danger Diabolik, based on the famous, long running fumetti Diabolik by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani which, as far as I know, has not been translated for an English audience. The comic book followed in a long  line of lionised fictional super-criminals which seemed more abundant in countries like France, Germany and Italy than they did over here in the UK or in the US. I suspect the character was more than a little inspired by the original Fantomas, for example and there were a few attempts to get Diabolik started as a film by producer Dino De Laurentiis, with actors like Jean Sorel and Catherine Deneuve in the roles of Diabolik and his super sexy girlfriend Eva Kant, before he finally got the great Mario Bava to direct the movie.

So this version stars John Philip Law as the master criminal (who was also working on Barbarella for the same producer at the time), the marvellous Marisa Mell as Eva Kant, the great Michel Piccoli as Diabolik’s nemesis police Inspector Ginko, Adolfo Celli (who played Bond villain Largo in Thunderball) as mob boss Valmont and, in a few scenes scattered throughout the film in what is more or less an extended cameo, comical British actor Terry Thomas (who was so much in demand at the time that he shot all his scenes in one day).

Although Diabolik does not come over as ruthless, perhaps, as he did in the early comic books, he’s still going around killing innocent people who get in the way of his headline grabbing crimes and, although you’re always on his side as much as Ginko’s, he does tend to do some typical Robin Hood style acts of terrorism along the way. For instance, when a new police commissioner puts out a one million dollar reward for his capture, he sends him a note saying that he does not believe using this sum of money as an enticement to his capture is in the interests of the regular taxpayer... and then proceeds to blow up all the tax offices in the district so that people no longer have to pay any income tax, since the government has no records left to figure out what anybody owes to anyone.

The film is beautifully directed and, because Dino chose Bava to direct it, looks stunning. Bava uses some of his standard modi operandi to split the shots with foreground objects such as book cases, windows and bars to compartmentalise his actors and uses ‘natural inserts’ such as reflections in a rear view mirror in a car to add interest to the shots (and possibly as a wink to the comic book origins of the character, almost as if he’s presenting the audience with a bunch of comic book panels on the page). Although his colouring in the film isn’t as bright as the neon primary hues he uses in a lot of his films, it’s still a pretty colourful affair with the odd Bava trademark colour collision thrown in, such as a psychedelic night club party sequence, enhanced by Ennio Morricone’s swinging score or, in the pre-credits sequence where Diabolik uses a smokescreen to steal a car carrying a large amount of money, using three jets of orange, purple and green smoke injected into the mix. And when Diabolik has to climb up a pale castle tower in the moonlight, he changes from a black catsuit to a white one to better blend in with the environment.

Bava also uses his lens to really build an iconic status around the characters of Diabolik and Eva, with everything they do in their ‘larger than life’ sets and locations (including a super-villain’s lair which would make Bruce Wayne green with envy) enhanced to the point where almost every shot they are in becomes an artificial, attention grabbing statement of the importance of their respective characters. For instance, Diabolik is not introduced as a person initially, but as his two seat Jaguar car, which invades the proceedings in the pre-credits with a Morricone musical stinger and which becomes almost an apex predator to the poor, bumbling policemen who are trying to protect the money... and when Diabolik’s masked, iconic visage is seen, he is giving a proper super-villain laugh before he dives into the sea, along with the money, as the brilliant title song ‘Deep Down’, sung by Christy, cuts in with swirling credits before we rejoin him racing off in his speedboat, hotly pursued by police helicopter.

Now, there are a lot of wonderful, jokey comic book style sequences in the movie, such as when Valmont promises to cross a character’s name off the human register and then later, indeed, making an X shape with the path of his machine gun as he guns the victim down. And there’s that sumptuous villain’s lair with it’s huge, pipe organ alarm system and, of course, everything is enhanced with Bava’s miniatures and matte paintings to make everything look much bigger than it really is. He even adds in a couple of animated sequences to bring the comic book comparison closer in a couple of scenes.

The film has often been called campy but, with the hard edge of various characters, not forgetting the dark criminal heart of Diabolik himself, it really isn’t. There are, however, a couple of similarities, it could be said, to the landmark Batman TV show and film from a couple of years earlier. Most notably when Diabolik and Eve, disguised as press photographers, use laughing gas dispersed by their flash bulbs to infect a police press conference with a very lively atmosphere. So... in very much the Batman style... the gas is actually labelled up as Exhilarating Gas and the pills which Diabolik and Eva take to protect themselves, are similarly labelled up as Anti Exhilarating Gas Capsules.

If I had to pick a favourite moment, in a film which is full of little ingenious and light hearted gags, it would be when the title character places himself under a security camera, takes a shot of the room with a polaroid camera and them places the photo in front of the camera so the room looks empty. Preposterous, of course, since it would probably be completely out of focus but, in the setting of a comic book milieu which is further heightened by the visual genius of Mario Bava, it works really well.

And I suppose that’s me done with Danger Diabolik, for now, although I am hoping to watch the new version over the next week or so and so, I will review that one for the blog soon (yeah... I did just that, review coming tomorrow, stay tuned). Meanwhile, if you haven’t figured it out by now, Danger Diabolik is a movie I’m always going to recommend to any lover of cinema and well worth your time.