Almost Blue (2000)

Grazia Negro is a police inspector specializing in the analysis of violent crimes. Along with her superior, Vittorio Poletto, she goes to Bologna to investigate a series of murders. At first, the protagonist’s technological methods are ridiculed by the colleagues investigating the case, but they prove essential in establishing the patterns that link the crimes to a single serial killer, who contacts his victims in various ways: first through the drug scene, then by contacting them in chat rooms. A witness, the landlady of a murdered tenant, describes the killer’s appearance in a way that matches the victim of the previous murder perfectly. It is then that Grazia, connecting this to the disappearance of the victims’ documents and belongings, realizes that the man they are looking for assumes their identities. The fingerprints found at the scene match those of Alessio Crotti, a young man on the autistic spectrum with a troubled past spent in institutions and psychiatric hospitals. When he comes of age, his drug-addicted brother takes him into his care and makes him live in the basement of a nightclub, where the brother himself is later found dead with several syringes in his body. The case is mistakenly closed as a suicide, when in reality it is Alessio’s first murder. A new impetus to the investigation comes from Simone, a blind young man who can associate voices and emotions with colors. He listens to a chat in which he realizes that a certain “wretch” intends to kill someone, and alerts the police with an anonymous phone call that also gives the location of the likely victim. But once again, the killer gets away by changing his identity, while retaining his distinguishing feature: the earbuds through which he listens to techno music, which accompanies him in all his murders. The unique “green” voice that Simone associates with the man they are pursuing prompts Grazia to make one last-ditch attempt: she takes Simone to a party that they believe Alessio will also attend. But once again the killer comes out on top, putting Simone’s safety at risk and drawing criticism of Grazia from her superiors and the public. By this point, the killer is getting ever closer to Simone. Pretending to be blind, he approaches Simone’s mother, who lets him into her home to make a phone call. He kills her and also wounds Grazia, who is trying to reach her at the time. Simone is taken to a hotel for his protection, and just as the traces of the man they are pursuing seem to be growing cold, Alessio himself pretends to turn himself in voluntarily. He is found handcuffed in Poletto’s car, claiming he wants to surrender in exchange for meeting the blind boy whose identity he wants to take. But it is yet another trick: the killer murders Vittorio and bursts into Simone’s room, wounding Grazia and restraining the young man. It is only during the identity exchange, while Alessio blinds himself with a razor blade to become like his prey, that the policewoman comes to and finally manages to capture him. The film ends with the two protagonists together on the roof of a building, now united romantically as well, while the killer, committed to an institution, raves on a bench surrounded by other patients, his eyes no longer able to see anything.