I love seeing Gilderoy's passion, and Jones is absolutely convincing as a scared little man who's consumed by his work, but there's nothing noteworthy about what Gilderoy's doing on this job. It's a gig working on a forgettable picture. He may not be used to the genre, but everything we gather from the sound design doesn't make it seem like Santini's picture is particularly transformative. The theaters are still busy selling tickets to Christmas-week releases, but there is another Paranormal Activity sequel.ĬBGB, Don Jon, InAPPropriate Comedy, Last Love, Hell Baby, Zombie Hamlet.Berberian Sound Studio's greatest strength is its passion. Everyone involved with the giallo picture are absolutely committed to the art of what they're doing. We never see the movie they're working on we only hear the film, and despite the awful dialogue, the ridiculous plot, and brutal-sounding gore, the characters take their work seriously. Strickland clearly has a deep admiration for the professions of sound design, because he spends a third of the movie showing how it works. But playing ominous music over close-ups of charts doesn't make the movie more intense. It makes it seem like he's trying to make up for the lack of an interesting story. Verdict: See it if you could just listen to the unsettling sounds of Suspiria all day. Unfortunately Berberian Sound Studio is no longer available to stream on Netflix USA. The more naturalistic, bloodless narrative, in which Gilderoy breaks up as a person, isn’t carried through to the extreme a giallo-inspired film would seem to demand. He may not be De Palma, but this movie shows a ton of promise. Berberian Sound Studio refuses such a climax: it at once celebrates giallo and takes it apart, disassembling it like Derren Brown explaining an illusion. I wish Strickland had found a way to push that reversal of expectation further into an actual plot resolution. And the letters from his mum turn out to be closer to the blood-soaked movie's horror than you might expect. (You may remember him as Karl Rove in W., Claudius Templesmith in The Hunger Games movies or the voice of Dobby in Harry Potter.) Gilderoy looks like Dobby next to the svelte, elegant, confident Italians, and when he fondles a letter from his mum back in England, his character skirts parody.īut then Gilderoy shows up the Italians in a key scene with his ability to draw sound effects from ordinary objects. (We see only its opening credits, but we hear entire scenes involving the slaughter of young equestrians and the Inquisition torture of witches.)Ī lot of the movie is just watching Jones at work, so it's lucky his Wally Shawn-esque little face is kind of fascinating. Yet, having seen only two Argento films (the one Gilderoy is making recalls Suspiria), I found the movie somewhat claustrophobic and repetitive, and occasionally yearned to catch a glimpse of the lurid horror film instead. My feelings fall between those two positions. This movie was made for horror geeks who don't mind spending 92 minutes just soaking up the atmosphere of the giallo. If you enjoy homages to horror movies and the key role sound plays therein? No. Don't expect an escalation of terror, or even much plot. Berberian Sound Studio is emphatically not one, despite its pervasive creepiness. If you want a straight horror movie? Yes. It's on video, Netflix and Amazon Instant, etc. Writer-director Peter Strickland won British and festival awards for this arty evocation of '70s horror - in which no blood is shed on screen. Surrounded by the sounds of mayhem, Gilderoy starts to imagine himself the savior of a young actress doing ADR (Fatma Mohamed) who clashes with the producer over the volume of her screams. The album is a soundtrack to Peter Strickland 's 2012 horror film Berberian Sound Studio. And he just can't get used to the bearded Foley artists, known as Massimo and Massimo, who smash melons to approximate smashing heads. Berberian Sound Studio is an original soundtrack album by the British band Broadcast. The secretary gives him the runaround when he tries to get his expenses reimbursed. The pompous producer (Cosimo Fusco) and lecherous director (Antonio Mancini) roll their eyes at Gilderoy's shyness and squeamishness. He's way out of his depth at the Italian studio. Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a meek British sound engineer known for his work on nature and children's programs, has been hired to mix a brutal Italian horror flick in the Dario Argento vein. This week in movies you missed: You've seen the "art of horror." Now hear the sound of horror.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |