‘Unknown Woman’ is Hitchcockian (or is it?)

Giuseppe Tornatore’s gritty thriller “The Unknown Woman,” opening Friday, plays out like a vintage Alfred Hitchcock classic. Just don’t say that to the director.

Tornatore, who helmed the Oscar-winning foreign language film “Cinema Paradiso,” says, “I would be telling you a big lie if I were to tell you I made this film inspired by Hitchcock.” Still, he adds cryptically through his interpreter, “if I tell you the films of Hitchcock didn’t have an effect on my life or films, then I would be telling you an even greater lie.”

Tornatore scored a huge hit in Italy two years ago with “Unknown Woman.” “It was extraordinary,” he says. “It won all the major David di Donatello awards; the Audience Award at the European Film Awards; and the Blockbuster at the Rome Film Festival. So I must say it had a nice success.”

Kseniya Rappoport stars in the chiller as Irena, a former Ukrainian prostitute who has given birth to a number of children, all of whom were sold into adoption by her pimp. After attempting to murder her pimp, she steals his money and flees to Italy where she believes her youngest child (Clara Dossena) is living with her adopted family. In a plan to become the girl’s nanny, Irena throws the caretaker (Piera Degli Esposti) down the stairs.

Tornatore says he develops his film ideas over several years. “Some fall by the wayside, and others, like this one, I held on to for 19 years,” he explains. “When I finally realized it was time to go forward with the film, I realized the form of it was perhaps not the right one.”

Originally, he says, the female protagonist was Italian. “But now the whole world of international clandestine traffic is connected to women of the Eastern bloc countries,” he says. So his Italian heroine became Ukranian.

Rappoport, who won the Donatello for best actress, is a respected theater performer from St. Petersburg. “I met her in Moscow during a casting session,” Tornatore says. “I brought her to Rome with another eight actresses and did screen tests. I immediately knew she was the right actress.”

-- Susan King