Synopsis
the story brings together a motley crew of characters on an island retreat owned by wealthy industrialist George Stark. Foremost among the guests is Gerry Farrell, a brilliant young inventor who is badly in need of a vacation. While the first night passes uneventfully, Farrell is enraged to discover that Stark, together with several of the other guests, has planned this "getaway" as an opportunity of coercing him into selling his latest invention: a new brand of industrial resin. Stark and his associates are hell-bent on buying the distribution rights, even if it literally means stabbing a few people in the back.
CINQUE BAMBOLE is a curious film, too flatly written and sloppily constructed to be entirely successful, yet too stylish and bizarre to be unlikable. Bava himself was not at all taken with the script and that, coupled with the total lack of preparation ("They paid me on Saturday and we started shooting on Monday," Bava was quoted as saying) gives the film a coarse, unfinished feel.
Bava's excellent use of decor gives the film an added advantage. Rather than tie himself down to a script he despises, he basically ignores it, turning the film into an absolute exercise in style. Particularly interesting is the way that he uses the landscape in relation to the claustrophobic island setting. Long, sensuous panning shots emphasize the apparent enormity of space, but ultimately the characters are trapped on every side by the ocean that surrounds them.
In the same way, the house functions as a kind of island-within-the-island, the modernity of the decor providing some comfort among the unfamiliarity of the natural world outside -- "civilization" in an uncivilized place. Bava also heightens the contrast between these two settings by emphasizing the utter artificiality of Stark's home in relation to the sun-drenched benevolence of the island itself. This sophisticated use of setting lends an added depth to the characters, though this may not register on a conscious level. By extending the metaphor of the island, it soon becomes apparent that the characters are all stranded in their own individual worlds, worlds marked by treachery, violence and infidelity. Stark is incapable of establishing normal relationships, so he buys whatever he wants; the world he creates for himself is cold, unemotional and phony. His wife, Jill, is miserable and lonely. She yearns for her former lover, Trudy, and when she comes to realize the failure of her life, she commits suicide. Everybody is too caught up in their own problems to be of any use to themselves or anybody else for that matter; in fact, nobody seems to really care about any of the gory goings-on. This attitude is perfectly summed up by Jack, who responds to Charles' death by opening a bottle of whiskey and saying, "House boys come and go, but there's always a bottle." As such, Mario Di Nardo's simplistic and uninspired screenplay is transformed into a much more resonant tale of greed and isolation in which the images of violent death seem inevitable rather than shocking.
Bava also opts to soft-pedal the violence in favor of building tension, but the characters are not terribly interesting and the meandering narrative is developed too haphazardly. In order for a story such as this to work perfectly, one needs to have some interest in the characters. A perfect example of this is the 1965 version of TEN LITTLE INDIANS, directed by George Pollock. While nowhere near so stylish or adventurous as CINQUE BAMBOLE, Pollock's film at least manages to create some suspense by virtue of its well-drawn characterizations. In the Pollock film, the viewer actually cares about what is going to happen to the characters, though this is due more to the excellent cast (Dennis Price, Leo Genn, Wilfrid Hyde-White, etc.) than to any added expertise on the filmmaker's part. As Bava demonstrates definitively in such works as SEI DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO and ECOLOGIA DEL DELITTO, the characters do not need to be sympathetic in order to engage the viewer, but they do need to be interesting. This is where CINQUE BAMBOLE stumbles. The fact that the characters are a morally reprehensible lot is unimportant (so are most of the people who populate ECOLOGIA) -- they are just plain dull. Matters are not helped by the fact that most of the actors are unable to do anything with their sketchily written roles. With the notable exceptions of Maurice Poli (Nick, later used more effectively in Bava's CANI ARRABBIATI, 1974), Teodoro Corra (Stark, just as effective as he was in ROY COLT & WINCHESTER JACK), and Edwige Fenech (a giallo fixture, here cast as the sexy Marie), the performers are every bit as dull as the people they are portraying.
Apart from its many failings and virtues, CINQUE BAMBOLE will most likely be remembered as Bava's strangest film. Within the giallo framework, the film stands apart from his other films in most every respect. Even the title is strange, not to mention senseless. The phenomenal success which greeted Dario Argento's dazzling debut L'UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO (BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, 1969) had made it fashionable for Italian thrillers to sport quirky titles, ranging from such worthy efforts as Riccardo Freda's L'IGUANA DALLA LINGUA DI FUOCO (IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE, 1971) and Lucio Fulci's UNA LUCERTOLA CON LA PELLE DI DONNA (LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, 1971) to the bargain-basement shocks of Paolo Cavara's LA TARANTOLA DAL VENTRE NERO (THE BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA, 1971). Even the worst of these films manage to provide some feeble explanation for their titles (usually, as in Argento's film, it provides a clue to the killer's identity). Not so with CINQUE BAMBOLE. Much like the film itself, the title is both striking and nonsensical.
It is noteworthy that, for the only time, Bava served as editor on this film, possibly in an attempt to save the production company some money. Certainly Bava manages to keep the action moving swiftly, even if it is at the expense of narrative cohesion. Bava adopts a jagged, succinct editorial style that sets the film apart from his earlier work, though it can be seen in more refined form in the films which follow it. From beginning to end, Bava cuts sharply from one set-piece or location to the next, with few of the atmospheric longeurs typical of his other work. There are no dissolves or fades, and the very concept of time is basically ignored. In utilizing this technique, Bava gives a further boost to the otherwise uninspired screenplay by lending it a subtly disorienting quality.
In the final analysis, this cannot be considered a successful film, but Bava's fans should find some points of interest. In any event, it is a hard film to dislike.
Review © Troy Howarth
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