Julie falls in love with Max at a bar in NYC, who is suffering from his wife-cum-famous tango dancer’s death. A famed American novelist, he asks her to live with him in Italy. Despite a close friend Natalie’s dissuasion, Julie’s life gradually lapses into an unstable labyrinth, plunging into strange world replenished with his memories about the deceased wife. [A Woman] is a remarkable psychological drama, where Willem Dafoe takes a leading role and as his wife directs. The filmmaker shows outstanding skills contrasting the first half, which is set in NYC with the second half, set in Southern Italy. As story goes on, these contrasted sceneries matche its narrative which is overwhelmed by unreality and mystery. The truth revealed at the end is unexpected one, but, most of all, it is surprising to see the filmmaker’s skills that capture the moods of each scenes with outstanding styles. Notably, a convention of fantastique genre, the ‘transgression of borderline’, is beautifully developed in a shot where the female protagonist walks down on a staircase into basement. Giada Colagrande successfully completed her third feature, with Willem Dafoe’s mature performance and the unique color touch proper to Italian cinema. (RHEE Soue-won)