La ragazza del lago

Plot synopsis:
Inspector Giovanni Sanzio, a Keenan Wynn look-alike, is on the case in this Italian version of Norwegian author Karin Fossum's mystery novel "Don't Look Back" (oddly translated into Italian/Friuli as "Lo squadro di uno soonosciuto").A beautiful girl is found dead on the lakeshore of a small Italian Alpine village, and Inpsector Sanzio is called in to employ his tremendous powers of professional guesswork to discover they whys and wherefores. In the process, he stumbles across an earlier (unsuspected) murder, the choking of an autistic 3-year-old by his parents.After chasing somewhat desperately after one false lead after another, Insp. Sanzio lights on the autistic boy's father: murderer of both his own son and the young lady, who had been the son's babysitter. The father was tired of the girl's accusing stares, guilty that neither he nor his wife could understand, let alone handle, their son's autism.Oddly enough, the girl was suffering from a terminal brain tumor, and having only months to live without her cherished little babysitting charge, she allows the father to drown her in the lake. Significantly, Insp. Sanzio arrives on the scene to note the girl has been carefully laid on her side, with her head awkwardly turned away...and this, says the inspector, shows she was murdered, without offering resistance, by a murder she knew and trusted.It amazes the viewer how laid back and calm these European mysteries are; cops are relatively sedate, and everything seems to be located in the boonies, far from civilization. Though the film meanders with silly red herrings, it nonetheless demonstrates how a real homicide detective does the job...whether it's Europe or America. The little Alpine Italian village is beautiful, adding some respite from the horror of murder. The Italian dialect spoken here is very melodic: it is much more like the Spanish-sounding Friuli language of Switzerland. Viewers will enjoy this subtle, beautifully shot movie. Fans of Karin Fossum will appreciate the way the Italians handled her globally popular "Inspector Sejer" mystery.

Tags: horror, flashback

Review:
In this Italian setting, a young girl named Anna is found dead on the shore of a rural mountain lake, lying nude on her side with her clothes neatly arranged by her.
Intitial suspects are the girl's boyfriend and a mentally slow man who lives nearby with his wheelchair bound elderly father and who first discovered the body and put his coat over it.
A seasoned criminal investigator from the south, Inspector Giovani Sanzio (Toni Servillo), is called in to help local authorities to help solve the death.
Director Molaioli gets the most from a fine supporting cast and this who-done-it takes several turns that keeps your interest peaked from beginning to end.
A beautiful victim in a beautiful setting starts us off on an interesting who-dun-it, with suspects emerging by the handful for our world-weary detective to evaluate.
Endings are never more important than in mysteries – a weak one makes us feel guilty for killing time.
After all, the pace started to pick up when the body of a young woman is found by the lake (hence the title) of a small and quiet Italian town, with the story progressing like an investigative drama that made me wanted to scream Twin Peaks!In essence, this film by Andrea Molaioli, based upon the novel by Karin Fossum, runs very much like how an investigations is set out to be, full of red herrings, half truths, deceit, together with plenty of doubt, and little leads to plough things forward.
For that, I thought it captured the dilemma of an investigator really well, with Toni Servillo in excellent form as Commissario Sanzio, a stoic, no-nonsense police investigator who together with his small team, have to solve this strange case.
If I may say so, it puts the audience into the thick of the action really well, with the ABCs of an investigation - Assume nothing, Believe nobody, and Check everything, superbly brought out.And that started right from the beginning too, as things are not quite they seem, and I was quick to pass judgement on the film, thinking that it was an open and shut case too soon, and too obvious.
For those who enjoy a good dose of investigative drama, then this film would be right up your alley.
There are frustrations of course when you find yourself drawn into the events of the picture, working toward trying to solve the case before Sanzio does, but each time being thwarted, and going back to the drawing board if you had missed a potential lead, or had been blindsided and failed to pick up clues that the actors give out, akin to playing a game of Cluedo.But those who don't enjoy wrecking your brains too much, fret not too.
The story is rich enough not to dwell too much on the police work, deftly splitting its time to dig into a little more of its central characters so that they flesh out in more three-dimensional terms, rather than being flat.
The ensemble cast deserves credit for making their characters believable, and hence all the more difficult when you try to weed out the possible suspects with clear motivations.
In particular, we see more of Sanzio's personal life in the film, where he has to deal with a wife suffering from advanced dementia, and a growing teenage daughter (Guilia Michelini) with whom he sometimes fail to see eye to eye with.
To me, for personal reasons, this was as accurate a movie as can be that had brought out similar feelings during probes into what had happened, and you know what?
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the story is adopted from a Scandinavian source; the lago (lake) was originally a fjord, and the book was Karin Fossum's bestseller mystery novel Don't Look Back (apologies to Nicolas Roeg), which Sandro Petraglia adapted for the screen in collaboration with directorial debutant Molaioli.Things start when little six-year-old Marta (Nicole Perrone), who has spent the night with her aunt, is sent off home, but on her way is talked into mounting the van of somebody she knows (in this town, everybody knows everybody else), and her safe trip home is derailed.
Till he's not, says another.Though this may seem more a study of provincial angst than a police procedural, the most angst-ridden and the center of the story is a former homicide cop, Inspector Sanzio (well played by noted director and theater man Toni Servillo).
Than Anna Nadal (Alessia Piovan) is found dead by the side of the lake, arranged in a peaceful position and with a coat over her naked body.Anna has a father, Davide Nadal (Marco Baliani), who loved her excessively; his videos of her have an almost voyeuristic quality.
His wife is (Anna Bonaiuto) elsewhere and he is hiding secrets about her from his daughter Francesca (Giulia Michelini), which whom he has an uneasy relationship This may seem revealing too much, but when we know this, we still know little; the essential information is yet to come along with the confession of the murderer.
And in this "existential" approach to murderthough this is hardly newit's not so important Whodunit as what's motivating everyone, and how much lies hidden in a seemingly quiet, well-behaved town, the turbulence below the placid surface of the lake.Andrea Molaioli has worked with directors Nanni Moretti, Carlo Mazzacurati, and Daniele Lucchetti.
The Girl by the Lake/La ragazza del lago swept the Italian Oscars with ten Davide di Donatello awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Actor (Servillo) and Best Screenplay.
I saw the film yesterday at the local Filmpodium that is sponsored by the Town of Zurich and I was touched by its quietness and restrained atmosphere and the complex story line.
Everything in this movie  from the production value to the acting - is underwhelming .The result is something that resembles a bad television episode of a crime series, definitely not movie.
The result, as in too many Italian movies lately, is that actors are left alone to do what they can, showing enormous differences in their performances.
You have Tony Servillo and Valeria Golino doing their job, but most of the rest of the cast is borderline amateur.This movie greatly embodies the little ambitions that too often have been lately seen in Italian Cinema..
An atmosphere which recalls Georges Simenon but the plot itself is closer to Agatha Christie's whodunit.Although a little MTV quality,the movie is often filmed on location and the mountain landscapes are wonderful.What puzzles the viewer is that almost all the characters are suffering ,including the cop,who 's got a wife in a mental hospital (probably Alzheimer's disease).Directing is effective if a little remote;but ,this is crucial in this kind of investigation,all the characters are interesting and the cast rise to the occasion.A girl was killed on the banks of a lake and many people from the village are suspects.If you like detective stories ,this movie was made for you..
Despite the acting of a few most of the movie looks like a fiction.
The story was interesting enough but the flow is very very slow and some of the dialogs are pretty much irritating (I'm Italian, people do not speak like that).
The photography and the camera work is all right but nothing more than a television film, pity because the location and the setting deserved more.
Toni Servillo is always a good actor and lead the film easily but often he has to deal with average if not amateur actors.
Up to a certain point it was still smart, then it just felt into some obvious and predictable conclusion, which seemed to be just the end they could finally make but I think they could have resolute the movie differently, giving to it a better twist.
This film should give inspiration to young Italian filmmakers because despite all other countries it seems like in Italy it's quite easy to make movie, don't need much for the producers, camera and photography can be as simple as possible, no fancy shooting and the movie can be shot in two weeks maybe.
More and more directors are realizing that, and other movies are being filmed here at the present time.
'The Girl By The Lake" is a good mystery movie with several suspects and a detective with an insinuating style that gradually arrests your attention.
The suspects backgrounds and possible motives are uncovered like layers of an onion, so towards the end of the picture you feel you are nowhere closer to a solution than when it started.
The movie is saved from a lower rating by the efforts of Toni Servillo as the Police Inspector, a nondescript sort who showed a great deal of charisma and brought his character to life.
I do not agree with a contributor who felt the support cast was amateurish as they were competent down to the least character.This picture is worth a good look and is better than the website contributors give it credit for.
The climax was not thrilling, but probably the way many murder cases end in the real world, matter-of-fact and not with guns blazing like in the movies..
''La Ragazza Del Lago'' is an enjoyable movie with high production values and an engaging story based on the second book in the Konrad Sejer series, written by the Norwegian author Karin Fossum.
Since this is an Italian production, Inspector Sejer is renamed as Commissario Sanzio, played by one of the best contemporary European actors, Toni Servillo who portrays the protagonist as having the character traits that Fossum have attributed to him in the novels i.e. a solemn, pessimistic middle-aged man living alone, who nevertheless has a profound insight in the field of psychology, something that proves to be helpful in every murder investigation.The story is not an original or particularly exciting, it involves the murder of a young girl living in a small, quiet village where everybody seems to have their own secrets.
''La Ragazza Del Lago'' will appeal mainly to the crime fiction fans who prefer the slow-burning, character oriented mystery and not to those who expect lots of action and special effects to a crime film (e.g. Hollywood productions).
This was a delightful detective story about a murder mystery set in a charming and picturesque European mountain village.
I liked the subtlety of various scenes and how it was filmed in a unique and interesting style.
The actors are all good in this movie and come across as natural and realistic characters who live in an isolated and tight knit community.There are many different things going on as a veteran detective investigates the mystery and uncovers secrets of the towns people.
The film is slow moving however, and requires patience and close attention for enjoyment of the plot, otherwise I could see how this movie's quirky style might be unappealing to the mainstream.
Despite this, the movie for most if its running time is well worth watching for those looking for an offbeat and interesting whodunit..
Based on a book written by a Norwegian female crime novelist who probably has Agatha Christie as her idol, "La Ragazza Del Lago" AKA "The Girl By The Lake" is an engrossing murder mystery set mostly in a small Alpine town near Udine, Italy.
The naked body of a beautiful young woman is accidentally discovered by a little girl near a lake.
Excellently played by Toni Servillo, this inspector is like a more human, more vulnerable Hercule Poirot.
The entire cast is good (by the way, Valeria Golino is perhaps even more beautiful at 41 than she was at 21; and the young Alessia Piovan is simply a knockout, face & body), but Servillo always remains the central figure.
After a slightly slow start the film grips you, and Andrea Molaioli's direction is very atmospheric - he really transports you to this scenic, peaceful (?) little town.
However, I felt that the ending was not fully satisfying: basically I was expecting at least one more twist and I was surprised to see the end credits appearing so soon (SPOILERS here, so don't read the next few lines if you haven't seen it: I also think that Anna having made a "pact" with her killer would have been a more plausible explanation for her not fighting back than the one the movie offers; even if she was prepared to die, she would have wanted it to be on her own terms END SPOILERS).
I do recommend this film to fans of Agatha Christie-type mysteries, but Christie herself would probably have added at least one more sting in the tail.
This foreign language film feels more like an extra long episode of a TV detective show, like the Italian version of Columbo or Poirot.
That's not much of knock as long as you go into The Girl by the Lake knowing you're not going to see anything all that new or different.Commissario Sanzio (Toni Servillo) is summoned to a small Italian town when a young girl goes missing, only to see her turn up almost immediately.
What keeps Sanzio in town is the body of a teenager (Alessia Piovan) found dead by the local lake.
He also has to determine if her death was connected to a secret the girl was keeping from everyone, all the while dealing with his own teenager daughter (Giulia Michelini) and mentally ill wife (Anna Bonaiuto).The reason why I say this feels like a TV episode is that only one of Sanzio's sidekicks actually does anything at all, while the other one and the prosecutor are nothing more than window dressing.
Yet, the movie establishes the relationships between those two and Sanzio far more than is deserved by their parts in the story.
And the film plops us down into the middle of Sanzio's family problems, again like it's a storyline being picked up from earlier in the season.Emphasizing this small screen sensibility is that there's nothing exceptional, or even potentially exceptional, about The Girl by the Lake.
I've got no real complaints with any aspect of it and did like it, but there's nothing complex or fantastic about the mystery, nothing striking about the acting and nothing compelling about either the filmmaking or the storytelling.
If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably enjoy this movie.
I think this movie is really, really good.I watched it today for the second time, after four years since I first saw it.
These people claim that the ending was dull, that the way the assassin confesses his crime is too 'casual', and that the reason behind the murder isn't strong enough.I do believe that these people didn't fully understand the movie, so I thought it was a good idea to explain my interpretation.
The reason leading me to this conclusion is that the clues allowing one to put all the pieces of the puzzle together are quite subtle, and they might be harder to catch for people that aren't fluent in Italian, and that had to read the subtitles to understand them.First important, and perhaps neglected, fact: Anna (the girl that was killed) witnessed how Angelo (the sick toddler) died.
She cannot ask her boyfriend either, because he is crazy in love with her, and would never help her to end her life.She needs someone with a motive to kill her, so she starts behaving in such a way that will lead someone to indeed do it.
This not only allows Anna to end her suffering, but also to take vengeance for Angelo's death, whom she loved dearly.At first the murderer claims that he killed Anna because they were lovers but she became obsessed by their relationship, driving him insane.
And we'll never know for sure what really happened by the lake, whether Corrado killed Anna because she asked him to, making him understand that this was the only way for him not to be accused of his son's death, or because he snapped and assaulted her violently.I do think that this movie is way more subtle than one might realize.
And, apart from the sophisticated murder's plot, there are many other reasons that make it a gem: the amazing performances by both Servillo and Golino, the inspector's complex relationship with his daughter, which is constantly put under scrutiny with the comparisons drawn from Anna's experience, his wife's struggle with Alzheimer, the somewhat chaotic process of trial and error that the inspector has to face, with many false leads that constantly throw him in the wrong direction, and finally the very honest description of ordinary people, that seem good people with normal lives on the surface, but that deep down have many things to hide and undisclosed problems to face..
In all honesty this movie did have some charm and heart at times and although I don't speak Italian (shocker I know) the acting seemed good, but the story just flopped in the end.
I don't know if the book it was based on ends so abruptly and unceremoniously but it all seemed like such a waste of time.
The killer just comes clean to the detective like a bad Perry Mason episode, the movie gives the viewer very little to go on as far as trying to solve the mystery (which to me can be important or at least entertaining in a crime drama) and there just seemed to be a lot of loose ends and not enough suspense.
The ending is the last thing we see in a movie (other then the credits naturally) and this end was pretty dull and lifeless, just like the girl by the lake..
Quite bluntly, good film up to the ending.
Yet all through the film they were saying how it was a gentle death, that it appeared she almost submitted,which made sense when they found she had a terminal illness.
Stupid, nonsensical ending which made what could have been a good film appear quite pretentious.