The Girl by the Lake

Valeria Golino

Inspector Giovanni Sanzio, a Keenan Wynn look-alike, is on the case in this Italian version of Norwegian author Karin Fossum's mystery novel "Don't Look Back" (oddly translated into Italian/Friuli as "Lo squadro di uno soonosciuto").A beautiful girl is found dead on the lakeshore of a small Italian Alpine village, and Inpsector Sanzio is called in to employ his tremendous powers of professional guesswork to discover they whys and wherefores. In the process, he stumbles across an earlier (unsuspected) murder, the choking of an autistic 3-year-old by his parents.After chasing somewhat desperately after one false lead after another, Insp. Sanzio lights on the autistic boy's father: murderer of both his own son and the young lady, who had been the son's babysitter. The father was tired of the girl's accusing stares, guilty that neither he nor his wife could understand, let alone handle, their son's autism.Oddly enough, the girl was suffering from a terminal brain tumor, and having only months to live without her cherished little babysitting charge, she allows the father to drown her in the lake. Significantly, Insp. Sanzio arrives on the scene to note the girl has been carefully laid on her side, with her head awkwardly turned away...and this, says the inspector, shows she was murdered, without offering resistance, by a murder she knew and trusted.It amazes the viewer how laid back and calm these European mysteries are; cops are relatively sedate, and everything seems to be located in the boonies, far from civilization. Though the film meanders with silly red herrings, it nonetheless demonstrates how a real homicide detective does the job...whether it's Europe or America. The little Alpine Italian village is beautiful, adding some respite from the horror of murder. The Italian dialect spoken here is very melodic: it is much more like the Spanish-sounding Friuli language of Switzerland. Viewers will enjoy this subtle, beautifully shot movie. Fans of Karin Fossum will appreciate the way the Italians handled her globally popular "Inspector Sejer" mystery.