A writer wants to get away from it all, so after a last telephone call with his mistress, he goes on his own up in the mountains to a lake resort where he once had a love affair with one of the maids. He finds her coat in a closet but not herself, so he asks about her and learns to his dismay that she committed suicide. There the mystery begins, and the major part of this film concerns his personal investigation into this enigmatic suicide, talking rot everyone who knew her but missing the most important witness, the daughter of the host, who knows too much and even tries to reach him but fails. He gets bewildered and can't get head or tails out of the mystery, although he steadily learns new details, some appearing in his dreams as revelations. He falls ill in a fever, which leads to a crisis and finally to yet another suicide and what is worse. He finally leaves the lake resort with the full story but with the most important body still not recovered.
In style this film is very reminiscent of Polanski's "Repulsion" two years earlier, it's the same kind of suggestive visualisation of nightmare imagination that proves too true to be bearable, and the cinematography is fantastic. The music in all its experimental suggestive effects is also quite well done, and since both the director and composer are called Rossellini, this appears to be a family project, but as such it is a treat.
In style this film is very reminiscent of Polanski's "Repulsion" two years earlier, it's the same kind of suggestive visualisation of nightmare imagination that proves too true to be bearable, and the cinematography is fantastic. The music in all its experimental suggestive effects is also quite well done, and since both the director and composer are called Rossellini, this appears to be a family project, but as such it is a treat.