Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Citizen Beneath Contempt is more like it. In the opening scene police chief Volonté cuts his girlfriend's throat and strews the crime scene with clues pointing to his own guilt. Why? Because he knows he can get away with it, because power corrupts and because you'd expect a police chief in a Petri movie to be an aspiring Übermensch. The tone is interesting, more parable than realistic narrative, and most people will have thought of Kafka long before the closing quotation from The Trial. Except this is reverse angle Kafka: Authority at its most nightmarish as seen through the eyes of a torturer. Morricone's jaunty score and Florinda Bolkan's cheerfully erotic presence are the only positively enjoyable elements in this gruelling little sermon.