Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye [Antonio Margheriti, 1973]:
A film that sits comfortably within two spheres of Italian genre cinema. First, the Gothic horror, in which wealthy characters gather at a brooding castle to grapple with long-held family secrets, animosities, and murderous greed. Second, the Giallo, where titular allusions to animals and a specific number of forewarned victims, set the scene for a slow-burning tale of murder and madness. Many of the films in this Gothic tradition are often erroneously referred to as Giallo films, but this one - helmed by the prolific Antonio Margheriti, director of the earlier Gothic horror classic, The Long Hair of Death (1964) - has some legitimacy to the claim.
Here, Jane Birkin plays a young woman returning to her family castle in the highlands of Scotland, where she immediately becomes embroiled in a veritable soap opera of familial dysfunction. There's a touch of the eccentric here too, as Margheriti includes a rogues' gallery of characters, including Hiram Keller as a handsome young madman who might've killed his sister, Doris Kunstmann as a French teacher with lesbian intentions, and Anton Diffring as a doctor with more than medicine on his mind. There's also a potentially violent gorilla that lives with Keller's character, as well as the all-seeing cat that bears witness to each of the many murders, with both adding to the sense of the strange and the uncanny.
Birkin would go on to give much better performances in later films by directors such as Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda (among others), but she's undoubtedly at her most beautiful here, and is an always welcome presence. Her partner at the time, Serge Gainsbourg, also makes an appearance (uncharacteristically) playing the part of a laconic police inspector, which makes this of definite interest to the work of the pop provocateur. While somewhat prosaic and even old-fashioned compared to many other Italian murder mysteries released during this same period, Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye is quite excellent. It features a strong, often somber atmosphere throughout, and includes some almost psychedelic stylizations, including an early dream sequence and some exceptional use of light and color.
