Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

3 reasons to see this film:

Toby Jones is an awesome actor with a vast acting palette; he was Truman Capote in the annoying/unbelievable characterisation by Douglas McGrath and his Infamous (2006), he was in political films Frost/Nixon and W., and he also was...Dobby in the Chamber of Secrets, the second installment of Harry Potter

Tonia Sotiropoulou is the new attractive mediterranean beauty out there; seriously sexy and dangerous, Tonia has dark eyes, intense look, well-shaped body, lips, facial bones even (yes, this level of perfection is attainable). Tonia is Greek, young and a Bond girl on the newest Skyfall 007 film, and she will soon reign the world of Thespians -that is my prediction.

Is there any language that sounds better than Italian? From my point of view, definitely not -my own mother tongue sounds a bit worse than this modern and more vibrant version of Latin. There's quite some Italian in the film, spoken by handsome and treacherous men, by young, aspiring women and in the end the Englishman Toby ends up being dubbed in the film that runs in his head and in which he is the main character, guess in what, of course in Italian -dubbing is what they were doing best already from the times of the Cinecitta Studios over there. 

3 reasons not to see this film:

If you once had a romantic idea of work, and how it should be passionate, and how it should be all about self-accomplishment and creativity and team-work and good vibes, but then you found yourself trapped in some Kafkian universe with a hateful boss and elusive characters as your colleagues; then you saw yourself changing, coming one step closer to a heartless monster every day, but something kept you from quitting. It could be fear, it could be need. Even if you left, this film will bring you back to the nightmares you'd rather forget.

If you have sensitive ears: Berberian Sound Studio has a powerful soundtrack, a wholeheartedly interesting one, but it does get disturbing at several points. Written by British band Broadcast, with one (the essential, apparently) member missing.

If you don't get David Lynch, if you never heard of giallo films and Dario Argento and Mario Bava, if the horror is for you an unnecessary genre, or if any given dark and inexplicable cosmos is not your piece of cake, then, don't even try.

* If you don't have a clue, the film is on a foley artist who is hired with little explanation to work on the soundtrack of a seventies italian sort of B-movie -giallo film is more or less that, while he was used to create sounds for documentaries on English nature. Peter Strickland is directing -he was invited to answer to our questions here in the Discovery Zone Luxembourg City Film Festival and to say that the film is actually related to the theme of technology, to the shift from analogue to digital and that he has seen it as The Office, only in that retro context. Philip French and Peter Bradshaw were seriously attracted to it, some awards were involved, but it's definitely not a film for a wide audience.

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