“La Vittima Designata” is an Italian spin on Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” and a film that has gained quite a cult reputation over the years, having being cut and somewhat discarded since its original release. This is a shame as the film has a strange, dreamlike quality and a glacial pace that differentiates it from most gialli, as well as little of the more outré elements associated with the conventions of the genre. It also pre-figures the poliziotteschi wave of a few years later and although it shares a number of poliziotteschi elements, it would be difficult to fit it into that genre. The film starts out with Stefano Argenti (Tomas Milian) seeking to sell shares in an advertising business he’s involved with. The shares, however, belong to his wife Luisa (Marisa Bartoli) and she refuses to sell. In a fit of pique he storms out and heads off to Venice with his lover, Fabienne (Katia Christine). In Venice he accidentally meets up with the mysterious Count Matteo Tiepolo (Pierre Clémenti) and the pair begin to develop a strange, somewhat homoerotic relationship. Sharing their woes they hatch a plan that will see each of them killing a family member of the other – Stefano will kill Matteo’s brother and Matteo will kill Stefano’s wife. Stefano does not take this seriously until his wife is murdered and it looks as if he’s being set-up as the killer. Matteo repeatedly visits Stefano urging him to fulfil his part of the bargain and when Stefano refuses he begins to feed clues the police that incriminate Stefano. Eventually, feeling he has no option, Stefano heads back to Venice supposedly to commit the murder of Matteo’s brother.

For a film that is normally considered a giallo “La Vittima Designata” is a strangely slow moving effort, with director Maurizio Lucidi spending significant time developing the odd relationship between Stefano and Matteo and letting a gloomy atmosphere of decay and moral ambivalence soak into the film. It is that atmosphere, beautifully captured in a mist-shrouded, out-of-season Venice that gives the film its style and its feeling of languid moral turpitude. The film has excellent cinematography by Aldo Tonti capturing the otherworldly nature of Venice and also capturing the fantastic colours and wonderful interiors in Stefano and Matteo’s residences. Tomas Milian and Pierre Clémenti as the two leads are both excellent, particularly Clémenti as the flamboyant, dandyish, decadent Count, who moves through Venice like an alien vampire. The homosexual element of the relationship between the two men is alluded to throughout. Despite the Count’s touchy behaviour and the romantic swell of the score whenever the pair meet this element is kept in the background – but only just. At one point, when the two men are thrust close together, with each of them holding and caressing the phallic pistol that they hold between them, the homoerotic subtext almost bursts into the foreground. The score by Luis Bacalov, assisted by the Italian progressive rock band “The New Trolls”, is excellent, with wispy, strained strings adding much to the ambience of the film. A strange gothic ballad (My Shadow in the Dark) sung by Tomas Milian floats over the opening and closing credits and plays its own part in the strangeness – it contains the Shakespearian refrain "to die, to sleep, maybe to dream", which elegantly sums up the overall mood and ambiance of the film. “La Vittima Designata” is a stylish, well-orchestrated giallo, which eschews tension and drama in exchange for strange relationships and dreamy atmospherics. It is an exchange that Maurizio Lucidi makes work to the advantage of this elegant and stylish film. ( )