Mystery of Oberwald

One of the few television films that Antonioni directed, this rare Italian/German coproduction (his third-to-final feature) finds the modernist master adapting none other than Jean Cocteau (his 1943 play The Eagle with Two Heads). Monica Vitti stars as the reclusive queen of an anonymous European country in the mid-19th century who has been mourning the assassination of her regal husband 10 years prior. A radical young poet (Franco Branciaroli) attempts to kill her during a clandestine stopover at a castle called Oberwald, and while the attempt on her life fails, it strangely sets the stage for a deeply, fatally romantic connection between the two. Something of a curiosity within Antonioni’s oeuvre, the shot-on-video Mystery of Oberwald marked the final collaboration between Vitti and the director who anointed her his muse. DCP courtesy of Cinecittà.