Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Films specifically designed for movie fans often get a difficult ride. For obvious reasons they are usually hamstrung by their niche appeal, designed as they are for the already converted to all things celluloid, their designs and textures alienating the casual viewer with affectations and events which can seem incongruous in the context of a wider story. Filmmakers such as Brian De Palma have done little more that forge an entire career on homaging cinema and the work of their beloved influences, and arguably the likes of his fans such as Quentin Tarantino have followed his trail down the post-modern rabbit hole, delivering works that whilst entertaining and ferocious operate on a pallid surface level, with little to say on the human condition as they stuff their movies with numerous references and in-jokes which can often pitch the experience into a dreary procession of just how well ‘read’ they are, cinematically speaking. Their influences are vast however, and we seem to get one of these ‘films about films’ every twelve months or so, last year it was the bizarre desert adventures of a telekinetic tyre in the rather inflated Rubber, before that  the likes of  Adaptation, Scream and The Last Action Hero enthralled and bored in equal measure, heck even The Artist, last years shock Oscar winner is an entertaining but rather facile amalgamation of Singing In The Rain, Douglas Fairbanks and Jean Harlow pictures that even had to stoop to embezzle a musical cue from a Vertigo to boost its historical credentials. Whilst these films can be fun little mental exercises, sure to fill the connoisseured viewer with a slightly self-satisfied glee they don’t often linger in the memory, fleeting phantoms that dissipate once you step out of the auditorium into the blinking sunlight, unless you happen to achieve the unholy quality threshold of Peeping Tom or Ed Wood, Rear Window or Mulholland Drive. Is Berberian Sound Studio tuned to the same classic frequency? Probably not, but it is a lovingly crafted, throughly entertaining psychological chiller that may just be among the years most satisfying cinema experiences. 

One of the rare critical raves of this years Frightfest  the movie stars Toby Jones (did you know he’s the son of Lynch regular Freddie Jones? You do now) as Gilderoy, a quiet, talented British sound engineer and Foley artist who has been hired to axially illustrate the latest horror bloodbath from terror maestro Santini (Antonio Mancini) who have flown him over to their eeriely quiet Italian production studio. Both Santini and his bronze tanned, chain-smoking producer Francesco (Cosimo Fusco) are portrayed as some uncanny mélange of Mario Bava, Jodorowsky and Lucio Fulci, spirited souls with a love of life and all things cinematic, with the flamboyant auteur dramatically proclaiming ‘I do not make horror movies, I make Santini movies’. Enlisted to provide the requisite shrill screams are two native voice artists, Veronica (Susanna Cappellaro) who ominously warns Gilderoy not to trust his paymasters and Elisa (Chiara D’Anna) whose purring tones doubles the female lead of The Equestrian Vortex, the film within a film, the plot of which seems to revolve around a trio of witches who terrorise, torture and slay their way through the nubile young students of a remote riding school – its pure, uncut giallo. As the complex technical work progresses Gilderoy’s concerns with the subject matter and gruesome violence of the movie intensifies, and the dread within the studio begins to draw long, ominous shadows…..

I can’t be the only horror fan who desperately wants to see The Equestrian Vortex  which has probably the best movie title of the year, but until that gets a nervous release Berberian Sound Studio  should sate your giallo attuned appetite as this is a terrifically eerie and atmospheric nightmare film. Like the illegitimate child of some devilish, ungodly union of The Conversation  and Suspiria  the film unfolds in the anxious, claustrophobic domicile of the film’s title – there is not one moment, not even an establishing shot outside of the studio -and the snippets of dialogue and characters comments allude to the unseen events of the meta-film,  including the rather startling reveals of ‘in this scene the putrid witches lurch into life in the corridor beneath the chicken coop’ or rather more startlingly ‘the aroused goblin patrols the equestrian centre searching for Mother Teresa’ – it sounds campy but the effect is simultaneously dreadful (as in full to the brim of dread) and apprehensively amusing. As you’d imagine the sound design is fantastic, echoing the skills of our nervous and mysterious central hero, whom Jones plays as a rather staid but quietly spirited technician, as opposed to some socially inept nerd which would seem to be the obvious choice, a man whose letters from his mother back home in England hint at some foreign malevolence. The cinematography complements the immersive sound design, with a hypnotic pattern of focus racks, match cuts and brooding colour blurs obscuring the frame, it all equates to a terrific atmosphere which deepens and descends as the film warps through to its disquieting and question prompting finale.

There is a genuine affection and respect for the source material, that cycle of deliriously designed murder mystery films of the late Sixties and Seventies from the likes of Argento and Fulci, Corbucci and Martino, those dangerously erotic kaleidoscopes which have retained a devoted cultish caché over the decades. Although the film eschews the maroon violence of those pictures in favour of a more abstruse anxiety the film lurches into pure David Lynch territory in its final act with a pirouette of superb moments and sequences which will prompt  movie fans to nod along in abraxas derived glee. If director Peter Strickland can’t quite pull all the strands coherently together for the coda which twitches with the spasmodic movements of a freshly impaled corpse then no matter, there is enough to muse over concerning the films rich visual and sonic designs, its prismatic purpose that will definitely be rewarded with future viewings – one of the years best, and essential viewing for film fans of a more international, illusory variety.

I was complaining back in June that this year was looking increasingly mediocre with only a rare gem glittering amongst the swine, I have to say that as we move into Autumn my hopes are rising that we can salvage 2012 as the likes of the left field brilliance of Berberian emerge from nowhere to deafen the critical community, and with a menu of Killing Me Softly, Beasts Of The Summer Wild, The Master, Holy Motors, Amour, Looper, Rust & Bone and The Hobbit on the horizon things are looking much more promising, and let’s hope Malick’s Into The Wonder gets picked up early in the new year, I can’t wait for that. After reading this fascinating New Yorker piece on the Wachowski’s I must admit to being much more interested in their new project than I was before, it’s a fascinating read on the perils of modern movie making and their history of movie adoration is arresting, I still have very strong reservations that they can successfully weave six narratives together for Cloud Atlas – that could play over a HBO season, never a three-hour movie – but I’d love to be proved wrong. Here’s that trailer again and finally here is a final taste of the Sound Studio, give it a spin;