A middle-aged man, Christian (David Richard White), agrees to sign over his body for a sum of €10,000. He is confined within an enormous Italian villa, alongside dozens of other guests. The details of the agreement are kept deliberately vague, but his employers allude to a mysterious force lurking in the forest. With their arrival signaled by the crash of thunder, the creatures will supposedly possess a member of the house.
Christian gets to work as a live-in caretaker, of sorts. The estate is filmed with a monumental sense of scale, the walls towering what seems like countless stories high. Marble pillars prop up enormous ceilings, with candelabras adorning the walls. The black-and-white camera slowly pans around the home, like a voyeuristic entity of its own, peering up and down the endless corridors. Christian mops floors, cleans dishes, and folds laundry, awaiting the sound of thunder and the arrival of the beasts. He’s accompanied by his fellow inmates, most of whom drift around the halls in a trance-like state. The proceedings evoke an unsettling, ethereal atmosphere, as though the men are operating in an otherworldly, limbo state. The sound design emphasizes this surreal, dreamlike atmosphere. We hear every footstep and creaking door echo ominously throughout the house. When the crash of thunder resonates from outside, the rousing score by Richard Lovese ramps up the tension.
Christian soon befriends his roommates, an imposing figure dubbed “The Giant” (Caesar Bonomelli), and Luh (Michael Venni), a feeble widower. Eventually, when inmates begin disappearing one-by-one, the trio senses things aren’t quite as they seem, soon plotting a daring escape. As the narrative unfolds, director Fabio D’Orta sets up a series of questions and answers for his characters, and the audience, to slowly unravel. Why did Christian sign up for the job? What is the purpose of the villa? And what are these mysterious creatures? The film also toys with themes of religion: the employers don priest-like robes, and Christian’s name is hardly coincidental. Is there something spiritual at play?
When the time comes, the film employs impressive special effects, cleverly masking them with deliberate lighting and monochrome visuals. Nevertheless, what stands out most is its acute sense of atmosphere and tension, which effectively builds throughout the runtime. Thus, The Complex Forms proves to be a clever, surreal mystery-thriller with a unique, genre-bending premise.
Review by Shane McKevitt for Brussels Independent Film Festival and Final Cut Magazine
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