If magic is real, then it isn’t obvious. It will probably never lend itself to definitive proof but rather reserve itself more for personal interpretation that depends on the hopes, beliefs, and dreams of the individual. Be it paranormal or psychological, magic spells can provide a lot of symbolic meaning, clarity, and guidance for the caster.
Giulio Questi’s inventive, esoteric, enchanted sorcery of a film, Arcana, is an unforgettable experience that I like to think is a magic spell itself. The effects of that spell really start to hit at about the one hour and fourteen-minute mark (when that hypnotic violin theme kicks in) and we get a peculiar standout segment in the film that is unlike anything else. The film also does a good job at capturing the appeal and mystique of tarot in both the divination reading scenes and in the unfolding of its mystifying plot.
Somewhere in Milan, dull and ordinary looking adults are converging on flat 26 in Building C. When asked, the feral children inhabiting the building passageways offer disinterested guidance to the room these strangers seek, the apartment of the Tarantino family, where these individuals believe they will find the answers/therapy they seek with the help of the arcane.
In the apartment, we are introduced to a widowed mother and medium (Lucia Bosè) and her son (Maurizio Degli Esposti) (Aside from their surname, they are nameless characters.) during a mundane but still peculiar group hypnotherapy session. Whether this mother and son pair are charlatans or not isn’t quite clear at this point, but during the session, the clients all seem to be locked into their respective hypnoses. The session does seem to have an obvious psychological effect on the clients, so much so that some of them apparently piss themselves on occasion.
After the customers leave, it becomes apparent that this mother and son aren’t sincere with their work. The mother talks about their customers as if they are fools who keep coming back to pay money. The son really seems to despise the whole affair the most, with disgust and disdain for the people that come by (He steals personal items and photographs off their IDs while they are busy with their readings.), but the business is steady, and it provides the extra money they still need beyond his deceased father’s meager retirement pay they collect.
The son is obviously a strange, troubled boy and an odd choice for a protagonist. I can’t tell if I like him as a character or not. I feel a tendency to want to relate to him, but I just can’t. He does have a way of getting under your skin. Is he messed up from the death of his father from an accident while working in the underground subway, or is he just weary of all the pitiful clients his mother constantly brings in? He claims to despise them because they are insincere and disguise themselves (despite being secretive and insincere himself). While his mother seems to be using magic for profit, he uses it for his own preoccupation that is rather vague. One of his predictions he casually makes to his mother about a client during a dinner scene earlier in the movie (something I didn’t catch until the third or fourth time I watched it) comes true much later just before a pivotal scene. Some of the scenes involving him and several objects (a lot of them suspended) are some of the most esoteric in the film.
After an uncomfortable, violent encounter where the son ties his mother to the bed to get her to confess to him the secret of magic, he sets out on a few fetch quests to find the ingredients to make a talisman and make some real magic happen (or as his mother puts it, “unleash Hell!”). It is amusing that he can find the ingredients in such common places as from a weed growing out of a pavement crack in a crowded city or some fungus in the underground construction area.
Lucia Bose is great in this and deserves a lot of praise. That scene where she legitimately ejects/spits/vomits real live frogs from her mouth is on another level (frogs coming out of the mouth are a symbol of unclean spirits). She is just an all-around stunning presence too as I’ve mentioned in the past with her role in Something Creeping in the Dark (1971).
Tina Aumont lends a personal magical presence to the film as Marisa. Her role in the story is a little difficult to pin down, as she’s not a main player like the mother and son character, but she still leaves an enchanting impression. She attends the intro group hypnotherapy (Peculiarly, she’s the only one who opens her eyes during this session.) as well as tarot readings from Mrs. Tarantino.
Despite his dislike for his mother’s clients, the son seems to be drawn towards Marisa. Although she is engaged to be married to someone else, it’s still understandable to assume that she might even be a potential love interest to the boy. He spots her on the train and looks at her weirdly a few times. They really have no chemistry, which is on purpose since their interaction is rather ill fated, leading to a kind of strange ritual climax scene in the apartment involving a small child-like woman (who I’m assuming is a kind of otherworldly oracle) and a lot of people crammed into that tiny apartment.
The underground railway is creepy, but to me, the kitchen is the most haunting place in the film: magic coffee, floating plates, frogs, and a musical segment with people in a ritualistic, slightly off-synchronized, shuffle that’s too languid looking to be a dance. I feel a lot of strange emotions every time I see that ritual kitchen scene and the violinists. The magic energy just comes off the screen here. Lucia Bosè’s character claims at one point that her mother was a real witch who “knew how to make donkeys fly.” Perhaps Bosè is channeling the grandmother witch during the kitchen scene that seems to exist separately from the narrative where she spits out the frogs. This could further be hinted at from the accompanying scene of a tied-up donkey being lifted up a building by a rope pulley (suggestive of a flying donkey), which is otherwise quite head scratching.
Beyond the entertainment, there’s a lot to take in and explore if the viewer chooses to. The film itself seems to be looking at magic and tarot from both a skeptical and real, but complex, angle.
Arcana has an odd dissonance to it, yet all these strange elements just seem to come together in a way that works. Even the weird stuff going on outside of the apartment (consisting of a few nods to Georges Bataille) with the rogue and bestial kids is kind of baffling and yet it somehow fits, especially considering the way they seem to conjure around the place with a strange connection to the son. Is it useless rubbish, or do the different strange ingredients combine to make for some fine movie magic?
Arcana won’t be for everyone, but if you manage to connect with it, it’s a divination that will stay with you forever.
© At the Mansion of Madness
