Mare nero (2006) Reviews

• Starts promisingly, only to lose its coherence as it proceeds

  MaxBorg892006-10-22

  Mare Nero (Black Sea) is Roberta Torre's fourth feature, and her first thriller. Given the acclaim her previous works had received, one might be entitled to expecting something good and interesting. Sadly, the movie isn't particularly accomplished. It begins well, though: a corpse is found in the sea (the location is Naples) and the deceased young woman turns out to have been leading a quite peculiar life during the night. As a police inspector (Luigi Lo Cascio) looks into the case, he gets more and more obsessed with the victim's habits, and this obsession starts causing problems in his relationship with a French woman (Anna Mouglalis). The rest of the story is very predictable, as Torre panders to genre conventions without adding anything new. In fact, from a certain point on, she kind of suspends the narrative threads, offering instead a montage of Lynch and Kubrick references. Technically speaking, I liked the film: the cinematography and music are impressive. As for the acting, Lo Cascio could have made his ambiguous cop more appealing, while Mouglalis'supporting turn is just as amusingly perverse as the role demands. Overall, however, Mare Nero disappoints because it gets overly confusing in its second half, with no precise idea of where it wants to go. This approach could have worked with the right director. Unfortunately, that isn't Roberta Torre. She should stick to musicals or dramas, and leave these films to those who know how to handle them. 6,5/10

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• Stylish, Classy, Sensual but with a Confused Screenplay

  claudio_carvalho2009-03-24

  The girlfriend (Anna Mouglalis) of Detective Luca Mocci (Luigi Lo Cascio) moves from the house her friend Charlotte to live with him. When the corpse of the upper-class escort and student Valentina Martini (Luigi Lo Cascio) is found in an apartment tied and beaten after a kinky sex, Detective Mocci becomes obsessed with his investigation in the underworld of sex in his city, arising dark desires and affecting his relationship with his girlfriend. "Mare Nero" is a stylish, classy and sensual thriller, but unfortunately the characters and situations are not well developed in the confused screenplay, where even the name of the detective's girlfriend is not disclosed. The ambiguity and weird personality of Mocci and the erotic games of his girlfriend are really not well developed. The good points are the stunning cinematography and soundtrack and the beauty of the actresses. My vote is five. Title (Brazil): "Mar Sombrio" ("Dark Sea")

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• Full of style, low on narrative

  Genevieve_X2009-07-04

  This stylish tour de force is a beauty to watch. I must admit that I don't, for one second, believe that Italian police stations are decked out in minimalist/modernist furniture and Italian detectives get around like Paul Smith models, but there is definitely something appealing in suspending disbelief to look at beautiful things. David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks appear to have been a huge influence for this. The film reads like a beautiful coffee table book on modernist furniture/photography. The leads are gorgeous and the lighting and cinematography sublime. There is also a huge amount of sexual expression, again done in a beautifully stylish manner that allows us to be the voyeur without feeling like we are watching cheap porn or tacky Hollywood T & A. Unfortunately, the storyline is confused. I get the distinct feeling that this film would've made sense had the editing been less brutal (but I could be totally wrong and perhaps the script is non-sensical). By the end I was wondering what the hell was going on (although I didn't care that much because it looked so great). Perhaps something was lost in translation? The story gets to the point where the viewer thinks they have 'got it', then it ends up on a tangent. Perhaps this is deliberate and we are asked to fill in the gaps ourselves, which is another Lynchian throw back ... If you like looking at Vogue fashion shoots, you will love this ...

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• Beautiful images (sometimes) but predictable and pretentious

  latinese2009-06-06

  One cannot deny that the director has a certain good taste: the images she builds are elegant and sometime there are virtuoso technical feats--but the problem is that this is a rather imitative movie. Tons of Lynch, which is easily recognizable, also the gradual derangement in the second part of the movie, with the not-very-original sort of ambiguity: is the detective's mind which is getting chaotic, or are we shown a dream of perversion and corruption (a possible reading of the final scene with the couple nonchalantly having breakfast as if nothing had happened). Fact is, one has to be Lynch to make Lynch's movies. It's a fascinating model, but very dangerous for people like Torre who do not have that sort of imaginative power. All in all a derivative movie, and one which--unlike Lynch's movies, even the weirdest ones--lacks the power to build a suspense of any kind. You know that the detective is going to be fascinated by the universe of scambisti (promiscuous couples) and is going to be attracted by prostitutes etc. Predictable, totally predictable. And boring, in the end.

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• Doesn't really work

  Phil_Chester2018-12-29

  This film is clearly made by someone who has watched 'Eyes Wide Shut' far too many times, but hasn't really understood it. The narrative makes almost no sense, and it actually often feels as if there was no attempt to include a narrative in the film at all. The only enjoyment to be had in watching this film is the satisfaction of the male gaze in eyeing some really beautiful women. Otherwise, avoid.

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