4th September 2009

GIALLO - AND THIS CONTAINS MAJOR LEAGUE SPOILERS

I love Argento. That's partly because his films are genuinely wonderful: seeing Terror At The Opera and Tenebrae on the huge screen at the Scala were astonishing experiences. And partly because, via Alan Jones' articles and reviews of Argento and Fulci in the early 80s editions of Starburst, they introduced me to the wider world of horror cinema I'd previously not been aware of. At that point I doubt I'd even heard of Bava, D'Amato or Franco , let alone Sergio Martino, Riccardo Freda or Aldo Lado. Everyone has an entry point in the genre and Argento was mine, so he and his work are special to me.

Over the years, however, it's been increasingly difficult to maintain the love. The last full-fledged masterwork was Terror At The Opera: that was 22 years ago and there's been nothing since on that level. Certainly there have been moments: his half of Two Evil Eyes is enjoyable, Trauma is okay but Dario-lite, Sleepless was a definite step up, and Do You Like Hitchcock is light and entertaining. I even liked his Masters Of Horror episode Pelts. But even the diehardest of diehard Argento fans - and there are thousands of them - must have winced at his recent offerings. Phantom Of The Opera is a complete shambles, The Card Player is largely uninteresting, Jenifer (his other Masters Of Horror episode) is mainly dull, and Mother Of Tears is an out of control mess.

Up until last week I thought it as a tie between The Phantom Of The Opera and The Stendhal Syndrome as Dario Argento's weakest films but tragically they're now tied in last but one. It pains me, but Giallo is right down at the bottom of the list. Honestly: where do you start?

(NB: Spoilers Ahoy.)

Well, with the title, because a giallo is one thing Giallo isn't! It's a psycho movie, it's a hard-bitten cop thriller, but it isn't a giallo. The killer has no connection with any other character, there's no motivation traditionally found in the genre (revenge, childhood trauma, blackmail), there's no mystery as to who or what he is: he's just a bog-standard serial killer. And given that there's no link between the cop and the killer, why on earth have the same actor playing both parts? Subplot that was lost in the rewrites? Budget? Ego? A drunken bet? Moreover what was the point in signalling this to crossword addicts everywhere by the anagram credit? Maybe I should start signing all my forum posts as Erich Redstart.

As for the performances: I have no idea what Adrien Brody thought he was playing at but I wouldn't be surprised if the men from the Academy showed up at his house and demanded the return of his Oscar not just for being duff but for being duff twice in the same movie. Meanwhile Emmanuelle Seigner as the leading lady (who, again departing from genre conventions, is never in distress though that may be just as well) just comes across as whiny and annoying.

How much of that is their fault, though, and how much is down to the screenplay? I've no idea what was on the original page but what's on screen would be genuinely unspeakable if Brody and Seigner hadn't actually had a run at speaking it. There's an interview with one of the writers where he's claimed that those laughs were actually intentional and frankly I'm just not buying it. (This is from the writer of Mammoth, remember.) I don't believe anyone is going to deliberately going to sit and write dialogue that terrible and I don't believe the audience were too dumb to recognise the difference between intentionally and unintentionally bad. This wasn't a comedy; Argento doesn't do comedy, except bits of character comedy such as the camp detective in Four Flies On Grey Velvet or the mad artist in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. The key is that they were not laughing with it, they were laughing at it. The scene where Brody tells Seigner, just a few days after meeting her, how he killed a man in cold blood and just explained it away to the police, is easily the stupidest thing Argento has ever put on film, and that includes Asia Argento making herself invisible in Mother Of Tears.

Okay, you can stretch credibility here and suggest that the script lost a lot in translation to Italian but even so it's hard to fathom how nobody on set ever looked at the lines and blanched. Adrien Brody isn't stupid: why could he not tell the dialogue was up to standard? Does Dario Argento have the absolute final say, even in matters of a language he himself says he's not entirely fluent in? It isn't as if these howlers weren't easily fixable.

None of which would really matter too much - gialli are usually a bit shaky on credibility, and that's one of the reasons we love them - if at least it looked and sounded good. But the last few movies have lost that heightened visual style. Suspiria grabs you right from the start, so forcefully that you never stop to wonder where all the green lights are coming from and what kind of architect would design a ballet school like that. With Mother Of Tears, though, I kept wondering where all the coloured lighting was and why it looked so drab. The same with The Card Player and unfortunately the same here. Then there's the music which is a fully orchestral score rather than the Goblin he's had such stunning collaborations with in the past, even up to Sleepless. He's had orchestras before - twice with Ennio Morricone in the late 90s - but here it's just a functional underscore rather than the full-blooded aural blast from the Suspiria days.

Was Argento actually enthused about this project or was he was just a gun for hire? I really do hope he has another genuine Dario Argento Film in him because I would hate for him to go out on such a poor note as Giallo. This is no way to end a career that included Deep Red and Inferno and Four Flies. But when committed Argento fans, even more committed than I, are walking out of a brand new Argento film because they just can't take it any more, something is seriously wrong. There are moments, isolated moments, that make you think he's going to turn it around, and then vast crushing swathes of disappointment when you realise that he hasn't.

Until the next time.

Richard.

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