The Film (4/5)

    When watching Elio Petri's the Assassin I couldn't help but be triggered back to my experience with the Jacques Rivette's film Paris Belongs to Us. Both films are the debut from directors with very unique cinematic viewpoints. Both films are entertaining, and experimental to a point. They also see both the filmmakers begin to touch upon elements that will become important parts of both their individual styles later in their careers.

     With The Assassin we have a film that deals with murder much in the way Kafka's the Trial does, with the central crime of that story with the exception being that the crime here is known from the start. The film follows antique store owner Alfredo (Marcello Mastroianni), who is arrested for the alleged murder of his mistress Adalgisa De Matteis. She was a wealthy socialite to whom he previously owed money. The early parts of the film detail his interrogation and the police trying to force a confession from Alfredo, before segueing into flashbacks during various jail and interrogation sequences that show his relationship with Adalgisa in the lead up to her death, which give a counter balance to the police accusations, but only to a point.

    The film is set up to be a investigative thriller, but much like his later, more polished work Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion the murder is just a jumping off point for a social satire and a character study.  The film attacks a system that can just show up at your door one morning without awareness and swallow you up, and then spit you back out. It has a chilling affect, and Petri would go back to this and similar subjects detailing the working class individual against the system through his career, but it is interesting to see him begin to work it out like this at the beginning.

    The film was lensed by noted cinematographer by Carlo Di Palma who also did Blow Up for Antonioni and gives the look a fresh and crisp visual style. We get a fantastic jazz inspired score  by Piero Piccioni. Performances here are fantastic, Marcello Mastroianni is as per usual in top form. The rest of the cast work extremely well in their roles.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    The Assassin is presented by Arrow Video in a splendid 1:85:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the original presentation. Everything looks great here, detail is excellent, contrast is strong. There is some minor fluctuation issues early on, but those are gone after the first third of the film, and things are solid after.  Grain is natural, but never overwhelming.

   Audio is presented with an LPCM 1.0 track in English. The track is quite solid with dialogue and score coming through clean and clear. I did not detect any issues.

Extras (3/5)

   The most substantial extra on the disc is a 52 minute featurette on Tonino Guerra upon whose work the film was based. We also get a 10 minute introduction to the film by Pasquale Iannone. There is also a trailer for the film, and liner notes.

Overall

    The Assassin is a unique and interesting film by director Elio Petri. The restoration by Arrow Academy looks and founds quite excellent, and has a nice, but limited, slate of extras. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.