Sunday 18 November 2007

Tenebre question

So, I am watching Tenebre again. A question arises regarding the second sequence of the film, in which Ania Pieroni's shoplifter is apprehended by Enio Girolami's store detective before she has left the supermercato: how does this reflect Italian law, circa 1982?

The reason I ask is because with what I'm familiar with in Scotland a store detective wouldn't apprehend a suspected shoplifter until they left the premises. How does it work in Italy, the USA, etc?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that it works the same way in Italy and the USA.
However, the only reason to wait until a suspected shoplifter is about to leave the premises is probably to have some sort of proof for the police/the courts and for someone like the store detective in Tenebre - who obviously has made some "deals" with caught shoplifters before - this might not be important or even detrimental to his intentions, after all, with other staff and customers witnessing an arrest it'd be somewhat hard to explain to his superiors why the stolen goods are still missing and the shoplifter has simply "vanished".

Steve Langton said...

I've often wondered about this and thought I was the only one. My wife is American and I've just asked her. She tells me the same thing would happen in the US with the shoplifter being apprehended before they had left the store. I've witnessed shoplifters in England who, when realising the game was up, simply put the items back and left the store. Great blog btw.