With Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, the married co-directing couple Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani announced to the world that they were a new force, bringing back the look and feel of the giallo for a new century.

Based on the novel Laissez Bronzer les Cadavres, this film expands their narrative point of view to take in the crime and Western genres, or as we know them, the polizichetti and spaghetti western.

A thug named Rhino and his gang of malcontents are on their way to the island getaway of Madame Luce with 250 kilograms of gold bullion — about $1.3 million dollars worth. That said, they’re also in the same place as a bohemian writer, his muse and many, many jealous lovers and ex-lovers, as well as the cops that are ready to engage in an all-day gun battle with the criminals.

Throughout the film, there are flashbacks to the performances of a younger Luce where she is tied up, painted with gold, whipped and licked by worshippers when she isn’t urinating on an anthill that looks exactly like the house where all of this violence is taking place. It might not make sense to the non-giallo initiated, but to some, it’s going to be high art.

The soundtrack is also a reference to the past, featuring Morricone’s songs from Face to Face,  The Fifth Cord and Who Saw Her Die?, as well as Christophe’s song from Road to Salina and music from Matalo!, Zombie Holocaust and Death Walks On High Heels.

While the films mines the past, it does so to find its own footing. I’m intrigued to see what Cattet and Forzani do next.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime.