‘Who Saw Her Die?’ or — Holding Its Own?
Aldo Lado’s ‘Who Saw Her Die?’ (1972) concerns a grieving father (George Lazenby) searching for a serial killer in the calli of Venice after the body of his young daughter is discovered floating in the water, and if you think that sounds remarkably similar to Nicolas Roeg’s ‘Don’t Look Now’ (1973) that’s because, at first glance, both films share a lot of common ground. The good news is ‘Who Saw Her Die?’ predates the latter by a year so it never feels like a cheap rip-off (it also does its own thing and has its own identity), although the even better news is Aldo’s film, whilst far from being a masterpiece, gives Roeg’s thriller a decent run for its money, and even does a couple of things better.
But let’s not get too carried away because plot-wise this is still a fairly run-of-the-mill Giallo filled with the typical red-herrings, bizarre leaps in logic and ridiculous final reveal. It’s also light on action, mayhem and suspense so anyone looking for a bloody, fast-paced, gripping thrill-ride could end up severely disappointed whilst anyone looking for a psycho-sexual examination of grief along the lines of Roeg could feel equally let-down.
So why watch this? Because ‘Who Saw Her Die?’ is a consistently inventive, atmospheric and hypnotic experience that focuses on bereaved parents and the undercurrents of corruption and depravity lurking in Venice’s upper echelons of society. And what it lacks in tension it makes up for in panche.
There’s a moment when Lazenby is sitting alone in Adolfo Celli’s (Bond fans will get a thrill seeing a former 007 and Spectre villain sharing the screen together) office, a dark-brown officious looking space, waiting for his appointment. It’s a somewhat boring and banal shot — a lone man in a visually uninteresting room — only for Celli to make his entrance not through the door but by pulling apart his bookcase and emerging from behind it. It’s not only completely unexpected but the bright, white light of the environment behind him completely disrupts the office’s intentionally bland decor.
And that’s what Aldo does brilliantly throughout this movie — the disruption of visual space. So uniformity (veils of fog) gives way to pixelation (a sudden scattering of pigeons), or a blanket of sky becomes fragmented by rows of windows and structural beams. All this is heightened by some truly gorgeous cinematography by Franco Di Giacomo and camera operator Giuseppe Lanci, both of whom went on to work with directors as renowned as the Taviani brothers with Lanci even providing the cinematography for Tarkovsky’s ‘Nostalghia’ (1983). This means we’re dealing with an incredibly good-looking movie and in terms of capturing mist-wreathed Venice in winter you could compare some of these images to those found in Visconti and you’d be hard pushed to pick a winner.
And if you want any more enticement then how about an excellent Ennio Morricone score (he’s in children’s choir mode on this one) which adds to the creepy sense of chilling unease.
I don’t want to over-sell ‘Who Saw Her Die?’ as despite all the technical and artistic delicacies and morsels to savour the film could still justifiably be accused of being a tad generic and, at times, narratively dull, but if you’re already familiar with the Giallo genre or you’re a fan of Venice captured on film there’s a strong chance you could be utterly entranced. Show this as part of a triple-bill of early 70’s Venice-based movies with ‘Don’t Look Now’ or ‘Death in Venice’ (1971) and you might be surprised at how well, in its own way, it holds its own.
