The Mystery of Oberwald
6.8 /10 1 Votes
Director Michelangelo Antonioni Music director Guido Turchi Country Italy | 6.6/10 IMDb Genre Drama, Romance Duration Language Italian | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date 3 September 1981 (1981-09-03) (Italy)
30 September 1981 (1981-09-30) (USA) Writer Jean Cocteau (play), Michelangelo Antonioni (adaptation), Tonino Guerra (adaptation) Screenplay Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra Cast Monica Vitti (The Queen), Paolo Bonacelli (Count of Foehn), Franco Branciaroli (Sebastian)Similar movies Story by Jean Cocteau, Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Dramas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Mystery of Oberwald (Italian: Il mistero di Oberwald) is a 1981 Italian drama film written, directed, and edited by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Monica Vitti, Paolo Bonacelli, and Franco Branciaroli. Based on the 1946 play L'Aigle à deux têtes by Jean Cocteau, the film is about a man who breaks into the castle at Oberwald to kill the queen but faints before doing so. The man's physical resemblance to the murdered king leads to a strange turn of events. The Mystery of Oberwald received the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon in 1982.
Contents
Plot
During the nineteenth century, a young radical poet named Sebastian (Franco Branciaroli) breaks into an old dilapidated castle in Oberwald on a dark stormy night intending to kill the queen and free his country. The queen (Monica Vitti) has been in mourning for ten years for her husband the king who was assassinated on their wedding day. Sebastian, who faints before he can kill the queen, is the spitting image of the assassinated king. Sebastian and the queen talk, and the queen discovers that Sebastian once wrote a subversive poem that she liked, even though it was attacking her. The queen dares Sebastian to kill her, otherwise she vows to kill him.
Cast
Reception
Upon its theatrical release, The Mystery of Oberwald received generally negative reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called it "a movie that probably wouldn't last five minutes in front of an audience in control of its wits and with no more than a passing interest in Art for its own sake." Canby concluded, "The only thing that makes The Mystery of Oberwald bearable is watching the Italian director's attempts to use video color techniques that are supposed to make more dramatic a fairly conventional narrative."
On the review aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 57% positive rating from critics based on 7 reviews, and a 35% positive audience rating based on 339 user ratings.
Awards
References
The Mystery of Oberwald WikipediaThe Mystery of Oberwald IMDb The Mystery of Oberwald themoviedb.org