September means summer is over, but I am struggling to summon the month’s propulsive back-to-school energy. I want to drain the season’s last dregs by squeezing in one last getaway. My destination? The floating city of Venice, setting of Paul Schrader’s languorous, late-summer erotic thriller The Comfort of Strangers.
The film, released in 1990, sees holidaying couple Mary (Natasha Richardson) and Colin (Rupert Everett) quickly lost among Venice’s labyrinthine cobbled backstreets after dark in search of a late-night café. Unluckily, they happen upon the debonair Robert (Christopher Walken), who ushers them into a neighbourhood bar and promises them “delicious Venetian food”.
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