Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion — “I’m your confessor”
Elio Petri’s 1970 masterpiece Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto is a heady and hectic head-first dive into a world of police corruption, dubious confessions and the mind of the wildest Raskolnikov type this writer has yet to see. The film interrogates institutionalised power with a delightfully oddball premise, frenetic composition and a masterclass in no-holds-barred satirical characterisation.
The film centres around a nameless inspector Il Dottore (“The Doctor”), who, on the eve of his promotion from head of homicide to the force’s political division, kills his lover and covers her apartment in his physical evidence. Made early in Italy’s Years of Lead, Investigation is a film fuelled by righteous anger against the police corruption of its time. From its recurring Marxist activists, acts of terrorism and fiery reactionary orations, the film’s story is imbued with the paranoia of the age. Petri’s expert direction amplifies this mood with subjective camerawork, overhead shots and diegetic cinematography, helped by a restless Morricone score. The tone is balanced by a blackly comic script, allowing the audience the reprieve of nervous laughter without compromising the film’s edge.
Central to Investigation’s success is the film’s innominate police chief, played expertly by star Gian Maria Volonté. Within this character are contained the many contradictions which arise from giving power to sinful humans. Il Dottore characterises the police’s role as one of moral guidance, similar to a father or a confessor. While a lesser story might have made the character a simple hypocrite, Petri and co-writer Ugo Pirro have the chief internalise this moral code, not as something inherently good but as a function of his office. Yet the ultimate moral authority is beyond reproach. He is driven to most foully break the law in an effort to prove he and his institution is indeed “above suspicion”. Such paradoxical behaviour provides great nuance to the film, raising its study of corrupt authority far above the simplicities of a Macbeth type.
Built around Il Dottore is the film’s police force, a varied portrayal which doesn’t pull punches. Petri displays the full range of environments, from equivocal conversations with subordinates and superiors to byzantine surveillance halls and interrogation rooms in their variegations. The frenzied tone this produces represents not only the chief’s environment of double meanings, but also his contradictory mindset; of course, the two are not unrelated. As the film progresses, absurdity upon absurdity accumulate to the inevitable breaking point, but even here Petri will not abide by ordinary expectations. Comparisons to Kafka at this point are trite, but by quoting the writer the film invites them. This author would venture that the film fully earns them.
All said, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is a masterwork of black humour and political satire. Expertly crafted, ferociously probing and cleverly conceptualised, Petri takes the institutional injustices of his time and all time and puts them on trial. Not to be missed.
