Quick-bite reviews: Lady in White (1988) dir. Frank LaLoggia
Writer Frankie Scarlatti reflects on his idyllic 1960s childhood, which changed the Halloween night he witnessed a ghost reenact her own murder, and was nearly killed himself.
This is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. I was going to compare it to Spielberg in that it handles dark topics through the lens of something very saccharine and nostalgic, but halfway through realized a more apt comparison is Stephen King. I don't want to give the impression that LaLoggia doesn't have a unique voice (you don't get 'weird' without that), but King is all over individual story beats and character relationships; elements being autobiographical and its being based on a local legend only add to that. I do think the funniest difference is that while King imbues his writing with a christian system of morality and spirituality he's extremely critical of the church, whereas LaLoggia adheres to that same system but is extremely Italian Catholic.
(fig.1- sure.)
I mention Spielberg and King, maybe the most popular living American filmmaker and writer, to give an idea of the tone and stress that this is a well-crafted, commercially-minded movie. The weirdness rears its head in two ways:
It's violent in a way I've never seen before. Not something at odds with the movie's goals, but other artists working in this subgenre would probably shy away from actually showing children be stalked, harmed, or killed, and here it's done in a way that lingers and feels uncomfortably real. Most would also probably shy away from the civil rights subplot that goes nowhere and ends with a graphic hate crime. I'm guessing it was a topic on LaLoggia's mind (understandably so growing up in NY in the 60s and working there in the 80s), but it causes trouble in that it starts to call attention to African American absence and systemic racism within the movie's warm depictions of American life, and then doesn't follow through on that attention. I'm honestly still trying to parse it and I wonder if LaLoggia was too; it seems like he realized it was more suited for a central conflict than a subplot so tries to quietly drop it altogether.
It's a mystery that's not on a schedule. To focus on atmosphere over plot gives it the feeling of an indie drama,* which is fine, but the driving force is two concurrent mysteries, so we get scenes where a character will discover a vital piece of information and then instead of following up on it they go to have fun outside with whimsical autumnal music (there's even an early scene that feels so oddly placed it immediately comes to mind as a clue.) Whereas the violence confused me in a negative way this confused me in a very positive one; I kind of loved it. I don't think the solution to either mystery is bad, and I like that the guy wrote a bittersweet coming-of-age novel that's fighting for its life to be an HBO serial killer miniseries.
I mostly just appreciated that Lady in White is so memorable. No idea if it's 'good,' jury's still out, but it has a concrete sense of place and purpose, and that does a lot of heavy lifting in storytelling.
Buy a ticket? I think you have to already like 80s movies and be willing to put up with a lot of bullshit (not mutually exclusive), but if that's the case then yes.
*It was the first and only occasion that a single, feature film was financed [through a penny stock offering.]!
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2024 reads / storygraph
Our Lady Of Mysterious Ailments & The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle
books 2 & 3 in the Edinburgh Nights series
paranormal mystery set in a climate-ravaged future Scotland, plagued by ghosts and magic
follows a 15yo Black girl who’s finally gotten an in to learn scientific magic properly - but it turns out to be an unpaid internship, so she has to take more jobs delivering ghost messages and investigating mysteries to take care of her gran and little sister
in book 2 she’s investigating a strange illness centred on a magic school for boys
and in book 3 she’s attending a global magician conference held in a creepy castle - when someone’s murdered, and they’re locked in until she figures out the culprit
Zimbabwean magic, friendship, disabled characters, no romance (so far)
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