Sunday, October 31, 2010

Scenes From A Career #8 - Dario Argento

_______________________________________________

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Love that still 4th from the bottom. Such an eerie image! I just got PHENOMA for Halloween. Can't wait to watch it...

Drew McIntosh said...

Phenomena is one of my favorites J.D., I actually just watched it the other night with people who had never seen it before, which is something I definitely recommend. Those last 20 minutes are something else.

Unknown said...

Yes! I watched it and loved it. May be my fave Argento after SUSPIRIA. I love the concept of a character being able to manipulate insects. The look and feel of the film really felt like a continuation of SUSPIRIA and it had that fairy tale meets giallo vibe as well. What a great film! And you're right about the last 20 minutes... wow!

Drew McIntosh said...

Glad you enjoyed it! I love how you describe its 'fairy-tale meets giallo' quality, that's certainly a good way of putting it. I also really love the chilly, blustery feel/look of the movie, Argento (as per the norm) just completely nails the atmosphere.

J.D., I don't know if you've seen INFERNO yet or not, but that one comes with the highest recommendation - it's my personal favorite Argento. It's the supposed "sequel" to Suspiria, though its narrative relationship to that masterpiece is tenuous at best (there are more technical similarities than anything.) It's just completely batshit crazy and gorgeous, and takes one risk after another.

Unknown said...

Yes, I've seen INFERNO and enjoyed it immensely. It is certainly a worthy sequel to SUSPIRIA. Have you seen MOTHER OF TEARS? A lot of people felt let down by it and well it certainly isn't up there with his greatest films, I quite enjoyed it.

Drew McIntosh said...

J.D., I have not yet seen MOTHER OF TEARS. To be honest, every one of the post-OPERA Argento's that I've seen I've been massively let down by (hence their lack of inclusion here), and at times it's almost like watching a completely different director to me, and for whatever reason I've not yet worked up the moxie to give that one a chance - even with as much as I love the first two films.

It's definitely encouraging to hear positive words about it though (those seem to be few and far between w/r/t late Argento), so I may finally have to give it the viewing it likely deserves, and just see for myself.