Page 22 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

his chapter, 'Violent Justice: Italian Crime/Cop Films from the 1970s', Barry examines the largely
untheorised genre of poliziotteschi, or violent police/crime films, produced in Italy between 1971 and
1979. With titles such as The Violent Professionals, Violent Naples and Live Like a Man, Die Like a
Cop, the poliziotteschi marked a new style of Italian thriller created by emerging directors such as
Enzio G. Castellari, Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi. These works traded on images of extreme
brutality, sex and perversion, and popularised actors like Maurizio Merli whose persona was defined
by a 'dirty mop of blond hair, thick bushy moustache, unruly mutton chop side burns, rose-lensed
aviator shades, chipped teeth, clenched fists and a wardrobe straight out of Shaft'. Although these
films have frequently been dismissed as emulating existing American 'rogue cop' movies such as Dirty
Harry, Barry argues that the cycle in fact reflects historically specific social and political concerns
occurring in Italy at the time. As titles such as Violent Naples and Violent Rome indicate, major areas
of the country were under effectively rendered lawless by violent political extremists (such as the Red
Brigade), militant groups and organised criminal gangs. As a result, Barry argues that this cycle not
only reflected the inherent fear of crime experienced by ordinary citizens, but also the frustration and
suspicion at the police and government structures to stem this violent tide. This ambivalence towards
the forces of authority are indicated in the poliziotteschi's repeated theme of an unorthodox enforcer
forced to adopt extreme measures to combat not only violent crime but also police incompetence
and wider political corruption. As a result, these unconventional loners have little option but to step
outside the law, as in the case of the hero of The Violent Professionals, forced to resign from the police
force to avenge the politically motivated assassination of his superior. By echoing real life concerns
about the possible collusion between the police and criminal/extremist organisations (as seen in the
1978 controversy surrounding the kidnapping and death of Aldo Moro), the poliziotteschi film
remains a highly-charged cycle produced during one of rhe most turbulent decades in Italy's recent
history.
Another author to offer an original exploration of hitherto marginal European texts is Christina
Stojanova. In her chapter, 'Mise-en-scenes of the Impossible: Soviet and Russian Horror Films',
Stojanova employs psychoanalysis to discuss the relationship between film, psyche and society. Her
chapter is one of the first ever to attempt to connect Russian and Soviet horror cinema to ideological
and socio-psychological frameworks of the country's cultural foundations. Her discussion of themes
of the horrific in Russian and Soviet links several periods through major motifs of supernatural
mysticism, physical and psychological horror, and their transmutations over years and genres.
Specifically, Stojanova identifies three major time frames (a Tsarist one, a Soviet period and a recent
period characterised by both reflexivity and renewed nationalism). The author's framework provides
a method for comparing (at least on a theoretical level) the ways in which Russian and Soviet films
have used (and continue to use) horrific images and threads as a means of addressing and symbolically
resisting official ideologies and religions. Innovatively, Stojanova uses the philosophical work of
Nikolay Berdyaev as a guideline. In particular, Berdyaev's work on the origin and consequences of
Russian-ness in 'The Russian Idea' (the mission of the nation in a context of strenuous co-existence
of socio-psychological and ethical extremes) is deployed to reveal how exactly these cinematic horror
motifs relate to larger issues of cultural representation and resistance. Through the myth and metaphor
of Kitezh-grad (the sunken city), Stojanova links this philosophy to general Freudian and Lacanian

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