Fashion photographer Fabrizio (Umberto Orsini) sails to a remote island for a photo-shoot with his sexy model-cum-girlfriend Margherita (Shoshana Cohen), seemingly nonchalant and no less lovely wife Anna (Beba Loncar) and her enigmatic younger sister Valeria (Haydee Politoff). En route they hear over the radio that an escaped prisoner has murdered a policeman and remains at large. Later Fabrizio discovers his boat has engine trouble. When a speedboat happens along Fabrizio abandons the women to hitch a ride to the shore, ostensibly to return with some help although he is also drawn to yet another attractive woman on board. Left alone the three women sunbathe, swim and explore the island, whereupon Margherita encounters the swarthy Marco (Corrado Pani). He claims to be a poet but Anna and Valeria have their doubts especially when they happen upon the body of a dead man that mysteriously disappears.
Among the more obscure and curiously titled Italian giallo thrillers (in a genre admittedly rife with eccentric titles), Interrabang contrives to be the ultimate mind-fuck murder mystery. With its sun-kissed beach vistas and three glamorous leading ladies clad in skimpy bikinis throughout the entire movie, the film is undeniably a vacation for the eyes. Yet director Giuliano Biagetti cannily contrasts the surface gloss, including the lovely score by Berto Pisano, with a mounting sense of uncertainty and unease. The title derives from the Incan symbol adorning Valeria's neck which she later bestows upon Marco, a question mark melded with an exclamation mark that supposedly represents the doubt and uncertainty in the modern world. Thus the film strives to make some kind of profound, if admittedly vague statement about social mores the late Sixties somewhat along the lines of what Michelangelo Antonioni attempted to do with his proto-giallo Blowup (1966). Certainly Fabrizio, the smarmy, sexist photographer who verbally abuses his models seems to have been modeled on David Hemmings' character in the earlier, more celebrated film. Given how often Fabrizio whines about being stranded on an idyllic island with three beautiful women one might be tempted to conclude he had a secret to hide if he weren't carrying on with Margherita.
Seasoned giallo fans have come to expect a certain sour layer of misogyny underlining the eye-candy and Interrabang serves up some choice samples of boorish late Sixties Italian machismo. Marco proves even smarmier than Fabrizio, a student radical turned violent thug who remains highly enamoured with his own knowledge of art, literature, philosophy and psychology, especially when it comes to knowing what makes women tick. He is the guy most sane people would go out of their way to avoid at a party or a bar yet here, somehow manages to score with each of the three heroines by calling them idiots, pointing out their shortcomings and playfully teasing as to whether he is the killer or not. As Marco seduces and disposes of each one by turn he calmly rationalizes his actions by maintaining the women were more or less dead already. Both of the male characters constantly comment on the vacuousness of modern life of which the women are supposedly emblematic. It is interesting how often counter-cultural artists settled on "frivolous" young women as the embodiment of everything wrong in society, as if middle-aged male power brokers were devoid of blame. This reinforces the notion that underneath the seemingly right-on, socially aware politics of late Sixties counterculture lay a troubling undercurrent of misogyny.
Early on Fabrizio mocks Valeria for reading a book on French philosophers and remarks how the desire to eliminate the boredom in life invariably ends in tragedy. And so it does albeit not of the sort viewers might come to expect. While a little too enigmatic for its own good, Interrabang still compels from start to finish. Compared to other gialli made around this time it is a slow burn, almost entirely bloodless and relatively restrained when it comes to nudity, though nonetheless erotic. Seemingly taking its cue from such other psychological dramas in thriller garb as Roman Polanski's influential Knife in the Water (1962) and possibly Orson Welles' The Deep which was in-production at the time but never finished, most of the film forgoes action in favour of characters slowly encircling and scrutinizing each other as talk turns from Valeria's resentment of Anna to her perceived frigidity and Margherita's nymphomania. The climactic twist is an undeniably head-spinner that will likely make or break the movie for some viewers yet ends things on a satisfyingly ambiguous note.
