What Have You Done to Solange? 4K 1972 Ultra HD 2160p

A teacher who is having an affair with one of his students is reluctant to provide an alibi when his lover becomes a witness to the first in a series of murders linked to their school.

User Review

If nothing interesting is happening around you, try this foolproof method: have sex outdoors. After all, if you believe what you see in the movies, one of two things is bound to happen at that moment: either evil spirits will crawl out from beneath the desecrated ground, or one of you—or someone nearby—will be brutally murdered.

That’s exactly what happens here. Enrico Rossini, a handsome gym teacher who also teaches Italian, and his young student Elizabeth dreamed of romantically making love in a boat, but as luck would have it, a girl’s corpse “just happened” to be lying nearby with a machete between her legs. The victim turned out to be one of Elizabeth’s classmates. Things only got worse from there: more bodies began to appear—some young, some not so young—and all of them had either a machete or a sickle in the fatal wound.

After spending some time as the prime suspect, Enrico—with his loyal wife Gerda by his side (her devotion to a womanizing husband is truly admirable; then again, the name says it all)—set out to conduct his own investigation. And one by one, terrifying secrets from the murdered girls’ pasts began to surface. The killer has a motive, but to uncover it, one must understand what might have connected the victims. And hanging in the air is the ghost of a certain Solange, who mysteriously disappeared from school and was once friends with the victims…

Dallaman’s film has the hallmarks of a good detective thriller: the presence of potential suspects, the gradual unraveling of the mystery, murders that occur “at just the right time” (in the sense that the viewer has no time to get bored in between detective work and romantic twists and turns), and a solid, non-trivial dramatic backdrop. And, of course, there’s the intrigue that builds slowly but surely, keeping you on the edge of your seat as you await the resolution. The film isn’t quite a high-art masterpiece, but it’s beautifully shot and the plot is engaging—you can’t deny those merits.

There aren’t really any famous actors here, but the ensemble cast turned out well nonetheless. Fabio Testi is a true Italian macho, and Karin Baal plays a patient German wife. A host of young and attractive students from the “institute for young ladies,” flashing their bare knees—and not just their knees (oh, that hole in the shower wall was drilled for a reason!)—it’s a real treat. Cristina Galbo is particularly good.

Fans of gritty detective stories might feel that the film has a bit too much lyricism—the arguments between the Rossinis, the teacher’s fateful infatuation with a student, and their romantic escapades… However, in my opinion, these interludes nicely lighten up the cocktail of brutal, bloody murders and the hunt for the maniac, which would otherwise be too intense.

It’s far from a cult classic detective film, but fans of the genre might well find it to their liking.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (72.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Info Audio

#Italian: FLAC 1.0
#English: FLAC 1.0

Info Subtitles