Posted on: Friday, December 19, 2003

MOVIE REVIEW
A handsome face buries all reason in 'The Embalmer'

By Gary Dowell
The Dallas Morning News

You may never look at a stuffed shrew the same way again after watching Italian director Matteo Garrone's "The Embalmer," a tale of a psychosexual power struggle within a very odd love triangle.

Said critter is one of the prized works of Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux), a diminutive, middle-age taxidermist who likes to live large and court young men by showering them with money and favors. One day he befriends a handsome young waiter named Valerio (Valerio Foglia Manzillo) at the zoo, and it isn't long before the waiter is working as Peppino's assistant for a whopper of a paycheck. Valerio is as naive and vapid as he is pretty, enjoying the perks of the job — especially the late-night clubbing forays and the hookers Peppino provides — while oblivious to Peppino's true intentions.

Peppino can't actually afford Valerio's salary and has been borrowing money from the Mafia, whom he helps smuggle drugs hidden inside cadavers, and they're growing considerably annoyed. On top of that, Valerio falls in love with a young woman named Deborah (Elisabetta Rocchetti) who almost immediately picks up on Peppino's jealousy and resentment. It isn't long before Peppino's obsession takes a sinister turn.

For all the time it spends depicting Peppono's subtle manipulation of Valerio, "The Embalmer" boils down to a battle of wills between two strong-willed predators, Peppino and Deborah, stalking the same prey. Deborah is out to capture a mate, and Peppino is, in a sense, seeking another trophy.

Garrone generates some finely tuned performances from his actors, but it is Mahieux who dominates the film as the pitiable, sinister taxidermist. He portrays Peppino not as a grotesquery, but as a repressed, wounded being, albeit one with a black little heart.

Although the premise is loaded with intriguing possibilities and more dark sexuality than a David Lynch film festival, Garrone goes only so far. (The mob sub-plot is often vague, and you'd think the animal stuffing motif would be carried further than it is). It's as if Garrone hesitated at the last instant, opting to deliver a safe denouement instead of a more daring one.

Still, in spite of some stiltedness, "The Embalmer" is an oft-intriguing examination of unquenched desire and the power of beauty.

Unrated (language, violence, nudity, sexuality). In Italian with English subtitles. 104 min.