The review of Hidden – Buried truths, the new film by Roberto D’Antona which is dedicated to the thriller and to the dark and dramatic story which revolves around the serial killer played by Francesco Emulo.
It’s always hard to work reviewing movies like Hidden – Buried truths. Difficult, delicate, but also pleasant and surprising. Why the film by Roberto D’Antona is part of that microcosm that tends to go mostly unnoticed by the general public, that of Italian independent cinema that does not have the context of visibility and peculiarity of the American one. So let’s start from an assumption: the very fact that the thriller produced, written and directed by D’Antona with his L/D Production, founded and managed together with Annamaria Lorusso, arrives in cinemas and with a wider distribution than the previous works is already an important and noteworthy achievement in itself. It represents a further step forward in a path of growth, productive and artistic, which has developed over the years and genres, from horror to action comedy and now to pure thriller. So, just for that, Hidden deserves a lot of attention.
Buried truths, broken lives in the plot of the film
The story of Hidden – Buried truths it starts from the normality of the province, a daily life stained by the disappearance of some women, which leaves most of the inhabitants of the area mostly careless. At least until the possibility emerges that it is the work of a serial killer, that those disappearances are actually murders, letting fear and concern emerge. A feeling and an emotional passage that is embodied by the figure of Martin Berardi, whose events we follow in parallel with that of the serial killer Emilio Lorenzi: they are the two tracks of a story that will only come to cross in an advanced stage of the film, giving new light and perspective at work set up by Roberto D’Antona.
Good and Evil in Hidden – Buried Truths
The operation imagined by Roberto D’Antona is very interesting, because on the one hand he has built a pure, direct and raw thriller, which stages evil without any indulgence, without any justification: the character of Emilio Lorenzi of the consolidated companion of adventure Francesco Emulo is an uncompromising serial killer, which is inspired by iconic figures of this rotten world, from Ted Bundy to the Monster of Florence. A character that D’Antona has chosen to tell by following the path of condemnation in no uncertain terms, building a figure to hate without any kind of filter.
On the other hand, however, the author of Until Hell e Caleb has chosen to go beyond the storyline involving the killer and his macabre exploits, adding a strong component from drama to his thriller. And in doing so he gets involved in the first person, playing the character of Martin Berardi, an ordinary person whose story collides with the murderer’s story. It is an ambitious narrative cue, which influences the times and ways of the story and the construction of tension to charge it with a different and deeper nuance. An attention to the characters that indicates the will to go beyond the genre, to use it to delve into stories and themes with attention and care, but is partly held back by the limits imposed by a small budget compared to other great genre titles that pass through our salt and on our screens.
Caleb, the review: Roberto D’Antona and the myth of the vampire
The topicality of the themes
Nonetheless, D’Antona manages to exploit every euro of the film’s budget and build a staging that goes beyond the concrete possibilities available to him, even in a film that does not require the visual richness of the previous one Calebbut a cruder and drier approach to the story, capable of also supporting the themes that the story conveys, starting from that of the femicideunfortunately more and more topical and highlighted in our chronicles. Hidden – Buried truths thus he manages to hit and hurt in some writing and staging choices, going beyond production and budget constraints. Inevitable special mention for the musical aspect and the soundtrack composed, as usual for Roberto D’Antona’s films, by Aurora Rochez, which accompanies and underlines the tension and the story.
Conclusions
In his new film, which we told you about in the review of Hidden – Verità sepolte, Roberto D’Antona puts himself to the test with the thriller and tries to decline the genre by dedicating attention to the drama to add depth of emotion and themes to the story. Current and thematically focused, the film thrives on an ambitious approach and manages to overcome the limitations related to its independent nature. Of note is the music by Aurora Rochez, but also the performance by Francesco Emulo in a character of a killer represented without any indulgence.
Because we like it
- Roberto D’Antona’s willingness to experiment between genres.
- The proof of Francesco Emulo in the role of a killer who represents pure and unjustified evil.
- The soundtrack by Aurora Rochez.
- The ability to go beyond the limits of a pure independent budget…
What’s wrong
- … which, however, inevitably emerge at times.
- D’Antona’s visual potential seemed more focused in Caleb’s horror guise.
