BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (HORROR / GIALLO) ***1/2 out of *****
(AKA: Mindfuck - Italian-style...)
CAST: Toby Jones, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Cosimo Fusco, Antonio Mancino, Susanna Cappellaro, Chiara D'Anna, Guido Adorni, Eugenia Caruso, Salvatore Greco, Lara Parmiani, Salvatore Li Causi.
DIRECTOR: Peter Strickland
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some damn good reasons to dive into the Gialli section of your local video store - straight ahead...
IT'S LIKE THIS: In one of our latest reviews, THE PURGE (review # 507), we talked about "The High Concept Movie," of which THE PURGE is a sterling example. You see, a High Concept Flick is one that has a very catchy premise and is extremely audience-friendly and therefore potentially very profitable. In other words, it's just about every single movie that comes out in multiplexes between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Actually, given how much the Summer Movie Season has expanded over the last decade, it's pretty much any movie that any major Hollywood studio bankrolls these days - and releases any day/month of the year.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is "The Weird Art House Flick." If a High Concept Movie is the star quarterback of Hollywood High, then a Weird Art House Movie is the chain-smoking goth teen wearing tight black jeans and leather jackets, standing off to the side, smirking and sneering at how vapid the football team and cheerleaders are. In other words, these two are like oil-and-water, apples-and-oranges, Turkey-and-Greece, or Jennifer Aniston-and-Angeline Jolie. I'm just saying...
You know the best way to spot a Weird Art House Flick? See if you can pitch it gracefully with just two sentences, the way you can with a High Concept Movie. If you can't, it's probably a weirdo. Case in point: our latest review, BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO, which is not only a cinematic love letter to the great Gialli (Italian thrillers) of the 60's, 70's, and 80's, but also to Weird Art House Flicks of all bizarro shapes and sizes.
The pitch for BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO would go a little something like this: "In the mid-70's, Gilderoy, a British sound recording artist, is hired by an Italian film company to come to Rome to supervise the sound effects of a Giallo movie called 'The Equestrian Vortex.' Soon, Gilderoy starts to go crazy from seeing all the horrifying things that occur around him - not only onscreen in the film he's working on, but also offscreen from the strange events taking place around him in the mysterious Italian studio."
Hmmmmm... actually, that wasn't half-bad. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it is also possible to get catchy pitches from Weird Art House flicks. If I was a producer or creative executive, I would totally ask to read the script that pitch was based on. Anywho, just like mentioned above, our hero is Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a British foley (sound) artist who looks a lot like Peter Dinklage's taller brother. Gilderoy is one of those stiff-upper-lip Brits who are stoic and self-effacing - which makes thing very interesting when he gets hired to travel to Italy to handle the sound effects of a Giallo called "Il Vortice Equestre" or "The Equestrian Vortex" to those of us who speak the Queen's English. You see, Italians are the most explosive and colorful people in the world, and watching the wee, conservative, pasty Gilderoy mince his way around a bunch of nutty, hot, olive-skinned, dark-haired people is a movie in itself.
Upon arrival at his new place-of-employment, bizarrely called "Berberian Sound Studio," Gilderoy meets the following crazy Italians: (1) Francesco (Cosimo Fusco), sexy and sleazy producer of the movie; (2) Giancarlo Santini (Antonio Mancino), sexy and pretentious snob director of the movie; (3) Giovanni (Guido Adorni), sexy and treacherous sound assistant; (4) Elena (Tonia Sotiropolou), smokin' hot mysterious secretary with shiny raven hair; (5) Veronica (Susannna Cappelaro), sexy actress with shiny raven hair dubbing the lead voice of the movie; (6) Claudia (Eugenia Caruso), sexy actress with shiny raven hair dubbing another character in the movie; (7) Chiara (Lara Parmiani) sexy actress with shiny raven hair dubbing yet another character in the movie; and (8) Elisa (Chiara D'Anna), yet another sexy actress dubbing yet another character in the movie. And, yes, she also has shiny raven hair.
In fact, this fucking movie is basically a 90 minute hair color commercial for L'Oreal Feria's Deep Brunette Shades. Don't be surprised if BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO and its army of hot brunettes causes the women of America to go dark. Literally. Which would make a married buddy of mine very happy since he has a boner the size of Gibraltar for anything with dark hair. Which is why I try not to be in the same room with him anymore if he's been drinking. But that is another, more fucked-up story. Ahem.
But I digress. At any rate, Gilderoy's job, according to those assholes Francesco and Santini, is to augment and beef up the sound effects to "The Equestrian Vortex" - which is apparently some Giallo about satanism, witchcraft, and murder running rampant in an isolated Italian horseback-riding academy. Apart from the opening titles of this movie-within-a-movie, we don't really see any scenes from "The Equestrian Vortex." We just hear them. And, boy, they are doozies. If the audio track of that flick is any indication, it sounds like nothing but Italian women getting skewered and sliced and slammed by witches, satanists, goblins, and - judging from some really fucked-up sound effects - the horses, too. Those Italians are such perverts, I tell ya. Which is why I love them.
Anyhow, just as we talked about in our faux-pitch for BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO, all the sounds and images from "The Equestrian Vortex" begin to take their toll on our feeble and easily-scared Gilderoy. Apparently, this dumbass has never seen a horror movie or thriller flick in his life, let alone one that was made by a bunch of crazy, perverted Italians. Is it any wonder, then, that the little pussy is soon whining to Francesco and Santini that the movie is too intense for him?
Of course, it doesn't help that Francesco and Giancarlo have basically been jerks to Gilderoy since he arrived. And Elena, The Ice Princess Secretary, also refuses to help Gilderoy file his travel voucher and get reimbursed for his airfare from London to Rome (which is her job, but whatever). This puts even more pressure on our frail British sound engineer. And that's even before Veronica starts telling him that Francesco and Santini had an ulterior motive in hiring Gilderoy in the first place. And before Gilderoy starts seeing his own life flashing on the screen in front of him, like he is part of the "The Equestrian Vortex"...
So... what the fuck is going on at the Berberian Sound Studio? Is there something sinister afoot within its walls and halls? What secrets are Francesco and Santini hiding? Is Veronica right when she says there is a conspiracy going on here? And why is Elena so chilly and standoffish to Gilderoy? Will she eventually help him? Is she an Ice Princess with a hidden-heart-of-gold underneath? Or is her cold exterior really just covering more ice? Is Gilderoy going insane? Or is there a real evil nearby? What is the real secret of "The Equestrian Vortex"? And will Gilderoy survive it?
Well, let's look at it this way: if he dies, at least he met a lot of really gorgeous, dark-haired Italians before he croaked...
BUT, SERIOUSLY: The press and marketing for BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO have called it an homage to the Giallo films of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Gialli (plural of Giallo) are thrillers (some horror-thrillers) which were produced in Italy during the decades mentioned above. Gialli are distinct from other kinds of thrillers in the Thriller Genre because of their unique Italian flavor - which is very operatic, stylish, and theatrical. A classic Giallo is usually set in Italy and features the following: (1) a foreign protagonist, usually an American or Briton; (2) a brutal crime the protagonist either witnesses or is pulled into somehow; (3) a mysterious killer with black gloves, fedora, and dark raincoat whose identity is not revealed until the very end; (4) ineffective police authorities whose ineptitude forces the protagonist to investigate on his/her own; and (5) a dark motive usually rooted in the past that finally explodes in the present to kickstart the serpentine, winding mystery.
Dario Argento and Mario Bava were the most famous of the Giallo directors, with Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Luigi Bazzoni, Jess Franco, and Umberto Lenzi bringing up the second wave, just to name a few. Next week, we will post a spotlight feature on Giallo films, with a "Gialli Sampler" in which we list the Ten Best Gialli for the beginner to get their feet bloody, er, wet with. For now, let's discuss BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO - and its link to those wonderfully entertaining and vibrantly colorful Italian thrillers.
The Giallo elements are present in BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO: Gilderoy is a Briton who goes to Italy to work on the sound effects of "Il Vortice Equestre" ("The Equestrian Vortex") - and soon finds himself at the center of very disturbing and disorienting events. While he doesn't witness a real murder, per se, as most Giallo protagonists do, Gilderoy is subjected to the relentless onslaught of unseen horrors in the movie he is working on. Aside from the opening titles of "The Equestrian Vortex," we never see anything else from this movie-within-a-movie that slowly drives Gilderoy over the deep end. And while he doesn't engage in as much do-it-yourself detective work as your typical Giallo hero/heroine, there are some passages where he attempts to understand what is going on around him - which leads to even more disturbing incidents and questions.
It should be noted, though, that BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO is not just a love letter to the Giallo section of the Thriller Genre - but also to another section: the Slow Burn Psychological Thriller. There are strong overtones here of ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE TENANT, KNIFE IN THE WATER, THE SHINING, REPULSION, and SESSION 9 - all Slow Burn Psychological Thrillers where seemingly-sane protagonists suddenly find themselves descending into a vortex of paranoia and madness. Soon, it becomes clear that the protagonist may not be so sane, after all... However, to say anything more about BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO's similarities to these films would spoil too much.
As Gilderoy, the frail Brit who slowly comes apart at the seams, Toby Jones hits all the right notes of building fear and, later, uneasy ambiguity. Jones keeps up on edge by not only making Gilderoy sympathetic, but also just a bit off-center so we slowly begin to wonder if anything he's seeing is real. It further helps that the supporting cast of lovely and talented Italian performers hold their own against Jones by effectively portraying a gallery of seductively threatening characters.
Cosimo Fusco and Antonio Mancino are pure silken menace as the as treacherous Francesco and ambiguous Giancarlo, while Susanna Cappellaro, Eugenia Caruso, Chiara D'Anna, and Lara Parmiani are all darkly alluring as the various raven-haired beauties who orbit around Gilderoy - further distorting his already-compromised perceptions. Best of them, however, is Tonia Sotiropolous who makes a real mark with just a few scenes as Elena, the icily aloof secretary who may be friend or foe. Sotiropolous had a tiny role as James Bond's Greek lover at the beginning of SKYFALL - and it's nice to see her get a bigger showcase here.
Last but not least, Suzy Kendall, star of such classic Gialli as THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970) & TORSO (1973), has a cameo as an actress dubbing screams for the terrorized heroines of "The Equestrian Vortex." I've been a fan of Kendall's since seeing her in the movies mentioned above, and her unexpected presence in this movie honoring the sub-genre she helped popularize is a real treat - and is very appropriate. I only wish that other actors and actresses from other classic Gialli could have participated in BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO. It would've been great to see the likes of Daria Nicolodi, Mirella D'Angelo, Gabriele Lavia, Udo Kier, Mimsy Farmer, Dalilla DiLazzaro, Stefania Casini, Asia Argento, and Jessica Harper - just to name a few.
In the end, BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO is not for everyone. It is too enigmatic and mysterious for most mainstream horror/thriller audiences, who may end up frustrated, confused, and unsatisfied. In other words, if you liked THE PURGE and THE CONJURING (review coming), this movie is likely not your cup of tea. However, those who aren't afraid of the "weird" and "bizarre" and don't mind going off the beaten path just might appreciate BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO. And, of course, those of you who love Gialli (us included) will certainly find something to scream about here.
In closing, please find below the faux-opening credits for the scary movie-within-the-scary movie of BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO: "The Equestrian Vortex."
Next week, please expect our SPOTLIGHT ON GIALLI, where we discuss the history and evolution of this uniquely Italian part of the Thriller Genre. We will also post our GIALLI SAMPLER: TOP TEN GIALLI FOR THE BEGINNER. Giallo fans will recognize most of the titles on the list - and for the uninitiated, it's a great way to be introduced to the films that have influenced modern American thrillers and horror films.
Ciao ciao!
