Veneciafrenia (2021)

A rather loud and somewhat obnoxious group of Spaniards arrives at Venice for a bit of partying and general mayhem as a sort of send-off before Isa (Ingrid García Jonsson) gets married to her absent fiancée. But don’t call it a hen party, please.

As it goes in these films, the gang gets into trouble soon enough, or really, more than one kind of trouble. There’s a murderous, stinky guy in a harlequin costume going around murdering tourists in silly, brutal ways, for one, but there may also be a greater conspiracy between parts of the Venetians who have had enough of the loud and unpleasant type of tourist arriving on a ecologically problematic cruise ship. Despite their best efforts, our Spanish protagonists actually take some time to get into truly dangerous situations, but once the first member of the group has disappeared, there’s little hope for the rest of them anymore. Particularly since these idiots are rather bad at providing the local police with any worthwhile hints or suggestions. Why, Isa can’t even produce a single photo of her own brother! And no, this isn’t setting up a plot twist.

I have a curious relationship with the body of work of director Álex de la Iglesia. His films are much beloved by many people whose opinions about these things I appreciate, but mostly, his general air of shrillness and crudity, often presented with an added bit of misogyny, does very little for me.

So, ironically as well as logically, those films of his I do enjoy are usually exactly those everybody else seems to have a problem with. This Venice-set modern giallo is a case in point, apparently, and most de la Iglesia fans seem to think this a very minor example of the director’s art and style. I, on the other hand, enjoyed this mix of giallo and somewhat ugly foreigner abroad tropes, with a pinch of conspiracy based on a very real problem. (Though de la Iglesia goes out of its way to not pretend every Venetian anti-cruise ship activist is a lunatic movie murderer).

I found myself particularly fond of the leisurely plotting of the whole affair, where long scenes of our tourists acting out and annoying the locals are used to very slowly build up tension and paranoia. Even though De la Iglesia is not the kind of visual stylist the great giallo masters in whose steps he follows here were, he finds quite a bit of creepy imagery. Carnival masks and cities going to ruin are of course gifts that keep on giving in this regard, but the film is also genuinely good at creating a general air of tension (rather than a more precise feeling of it) through many a shot of pissed-off Venetians, of dark canals and streets, and many a masked person who may or may not be involved in any of the plot(s). This does of course not for a zippy film make. I believe this works to this particular film’s advantage, though, and is most certainly keeping in the spirit of the giallo, as are some rather strained examples of randomness throughout that don’t really make much sense.

The film’s pace is a bit peculiar in other regards, as well. Particularly the climax is placed strangely. The actual dramatic centrepiece of the film happens rather earlier than you’d expect, and what comes after builds up to another big confrontation that then never actually comes to pass. This kind of refusal of gratification only a director of great experience and eccentricity could pull off – or even just be interested in - and de la Iglesia certainly is that, whatever else I may think of him.