No disrespect to the more high-minded entries, but a ripe genre detour can often be just what you crave during an intensive festival. Paolo Strippoli’s The Spiral (L’Estranea) scratches that itch with a psychological thriller seeped in supernatural horror, dread and vicious satire of middle-class Italians who would sooner sell their souls to the devil — or some random woman in a hospital chapel — than risk the embarrassment of damaged children. Led by a nail-biting performance from Jasmine Trinca and wicked support from Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, who really should play bad-bitch emissaries of evil more often, this is juicy entertainment that ought to travel well.
Though neither of them was widely seen internationally, Strippoli’s Flowing and The Holy Boy saw him honing his skills with dark-hearted chillers, dipping into nightmarish family friction and religious horror, respectively. His taut, stylishly directed third solo feature returns to the sacred institution of the well-heeled Italian family — affluent, beautiful, chic, prominently positioned in society — and the panic that can ensue when something threatens to dull their enviable golden glow. Even if the movie gets a bit crazy in an apocalyptic epilogue, its picture of bourgeois smugness due for a takedown is delicious.
