ARRIVEDERCI AMORE CIAO (The Goodbye Kiss) Review

There is nothing more dangerous than a man who no longer believes.

His first theatrical release since the cult classic Dellamorte, Dellamore - known on these shores as Cemetary Man - Michele Soavi's Arrivederci Amore Ciao stars Alessio Boni as Giorgio. Once a young idealist and political rebel, Giorgio has been forced to live in hiding for the past fifteen years, driven out of his home and into the welcoming arms of Central American guerrilla fighters after he is fingered for a political bombing in his homeland. But time has dulled Giorgio's youthful fire. He has lost the faith. He no longer cares. All he wants is to get out of the jungle and go home. And if the price of his departure, the proof of his continuing loyalty to the cause, is the execution of his closest friend then so be it.

The corpse of his slain comrade still warm behind him, Giorgio returns to Europe, where his old revolutionary friends are now leaving an easy life, at least those of them not living out their years in prison. A willing scapegoat for Giorgio's crimes is found amongst those already jailed and the stage seems to be set for his exoneration and return home, a short stint in prison followed by a period of clean living will have Giorgio ruled 'rehabilitated', his slate wiped clean. But things are never that easy. A dirty cop has photographic evidence of Giorgio's involvement in the bombing, proof positive that the confession meant to free Giorgio is a fake. The cop owns Giorgio now, and he knows it. At first he looks for career advancement, leaning on the former revolutionary to spill names and contacts. Later come the robberies, heists and killings for profit.

Giorgio, for his part, simply goes with the flow, sliding from one situation to the next as they present themselves doing nothing more than to try to maximize his own gain with no regard whatsoever for anyone else. A job waiting tables lasts only as long as it takes for a former cell mate to offer him a job as a hired goon in what must surely be the most opulent sex club ever put on film. In mere days Giorgio is skimming a cut from the stripper's daily take and exploiting a coke fiend's wife for sex to pay down the interest on her husband's debt. When that job turns sour he brings in the dirty cop to bust his former employer for drug trafficking while keeping the proceeds for themselves. After that it's a heist job put together with another former cellmate,a job that not coincidentally leaves everyone involved other than Giorgio and his cop accomplice dead. The proceeds from that job allow Giorgio to set up a restaurant for himself and put on a quiet domestic front in search of normal respectability. But these things never last.

Fans who know Soavi only from Dellamorte, Dellamore will be in for something of a surprise here as Arrivederci - as drenched in sex, drugs and violence as it is - keeps the stylistic excesses to a minimum, opting for a more straight faced approach to his subject matter. Though it is slicker, sexier and more violent by far than Soavi's television work, this is far more in keeping with the likes of Uno Bianca than with his previous feature. Alessio Boni is stellar as Giorgio, a blank, vacant slate of a man whose soul has been scorched out of him by time, circumstance, and his own actions. Nothing matters to Giorgio any more, absolutely nothing. He has nothing to live for anymore but himself, nothing to care about but his own comfort, and Boni effortlessly embodies the hollow amorality that makes Giorgio such an incredibly dangerous man.

Does it make me a bad person, though, to say that the film enters a gradual decline from the moment Giorgio exits the sex club? Because it does, though not necessarily for the reasons you may think. Soavi - as unabashedly a breast-man as there ever has been - makes the somewhat unusual decision to completely front load the action in the film, the pace starting frantic and then gradually declining as the film proceeds, pushing farther into character work and farther away from the action and exploitative elements that drive the opening act from the moment Giorgio exits the club. It's not that there isn't any action from this point forward, it's just that the opening is so graphic that the change in gears feels like something of a let down, very likely because once Giorgio has his revenge on the club owner it becomes quickly apparent just what a blank cipher this man is - there is nothing driving him other than his own bored self interest, which makes many important points within the film but also means that it proceeds with a curious lack of narrative drive. Giorgio is one of the most passive criminals ever put on the screen, a man with no particular purpose, plan or goal who simply floats from situation to situation. That aimlessness, as odd as it feels at points, is precisely Soavi's point, however. Giorgio is a microcosm of Italy itself, he seems to be saying, and when the final line comes, Giorgio's claim that he is now exactly the same as everyone else, it comes delivered not as a redemptive note for the character but as a stinging criticism of Italy because Giorgio hasn't changed a bit from start to finish and he is absolutely correct.

Highly sought after by Soavi's cult following Arrivederci Amore Ciao has been frustratingly difficult to see, either on screen or on DVD. To date the only English friendly release is a Thai edition - available here - that many, including myself, have been leery of considering Thailand's recent spate of censorship issues on their DVD releases. While I've not seen anything I know to be uncut to compare this edition to, it certainly appears to be complete, however. There are so many naked breasts and so much explicit, bloody gunplay throughout - both of which are supposedly verboten on Thai releases - that it's hard to imagine that censors found other material to object to while leaving all of this in. And nowhere are there any obvious cuts, everything seems to flow as intended. The transfer is anamorphic and in the correct ratio, clean if perhaps a little bit soft. The original Italian audio is included in Dolby 5.1 with, shall we say, an interesting set of English subtitles. The core script - all of the dialog delivered between characters - is given a clear translation that flows naturally and I can only assume that these parts of the translation were provided to the Thai releasing company by the film's producers. But in a move to be even more exhaustive with their translation the Thai release has also translated all secondary dialog - radio transmissions, television and the like - and they appear to have done so with voice recognition software and an automatic translator with proof readers never entering the equation. These bits are baffling and hilarious inept but are thoroughly unnecessary for your understanding and enjoyment of the film and so not really an issue.