Dir. Dario Argento
Tenebrae blew me away. This film was my first Argento and I've literally bought nearly every film of his I can get my hands on since watching it. For that reason, if you have any intention this Halloween of seeing a fantastically stylish slasher film with a kickass synth soundtrack (No, not Halloween!), then read on only if you don't mind having the twist of the killer's identity spoiled.
...still here? Ok, here we go.
Now as you would know from a cursory read of the refreshingly in-depth wikipedia page for this film, Tenebrae is a film all about duality. I nearly chose the typewriters as the objects for this film because the duality theme din't actually hit me until I saw them together. There are two killers in the film, the first, who commits the murders of the first half of the film, is reporter Christiano Berti (John Steiner), who is inspired in his own way by the slasher books of author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa). The second murderer, as we discover later in the film, is Neal himself, who becomes unshackled mentally by the murders of Berti.
Earlier in the film, before we have even met Berti, we see a dream-like sequence where a beautiful woman (Eva Robin) leads men to a beach as she undresses slowly. The men crowd around her, and she goes to her knees, feeling the legs and torso of each of the men - almost trying to touch all of them at the same time. In slow motion, one of the men slaps her hard across the face. Licking her wounds, she only has to look at the men, using her sexual power to make them catch the man, now running away. They hold the man down, and she, who is clad in a simple white dress with bold red high-heeled shoes, kicks him repeatedly. She finishes her assault by forcing the heel down the man's throat, raping him orally.
Take a breather because this is a highly charged image in its own right, even stronger in the scene as a whole. This woman holds such sway over the men, yet remains an object to be abused physically. Her sexual allure is so strong however that this societal 'weakness' as a woman is turned on its head, and her beauty is enough to turn men her slaves, co-operators in her shaming of the man who took a step too far in the face of her beauty. She uses the brutal sexuality of the man against him, forcing her heel into his mouth, raping him as he would have done to her. There is an undercurrent of homosexuality, as if he's being forced to suck a dick, but this is harsher, as the heel in an inherently feminine object, and so it is doubly humiliating as it is feminization via masculine, somewhat gay imagery.
As Neal goes on to murder later, we see a second flashback in the first person, where the woman in white is stabbed in, presumably, revenge by the abused man. This flashback takes place during Neal's 'section' of the film, as he goes on his murder spree, and so we are to presume that these flashbacks are his own history - he was the abused man. His murders against women by fictional characters in his novels are, like Berti believes wholeheartedly, subconscious victories against women as a whole, due to the acts of this one woman in the past. So to are his murders now, and indeed this is manifested directly in his gift of red high-heeled shoes to his ex-wife Jane (Dario Nicolodi), who is later murdered by Neal for having an affair with his publicist, Bullmer (John Saxon) - who he has already publicly murdered at this point in the film.
Jane's death is remarkably violent, as Neal bursts through the window with an axe, chopping her hand off as it sprays blood across the wall. She is stabbed in the cheat over and over by Neal off-camera, and it is here we are revealed the identity of the second killer, Neal. Here the flashbacks are 'explained', and the motive of Neal made clear. He directly emulates the death of the woman who abused him, by not only eliminating his cheating ex-wife, but also the abusing woman symbolically, as Jane wears the red heels, and wears a white dress that becomes stained with blood.
It's a truly horrible death, as are most in the film, but this one is remarkably sadistic and brutal, as are all of Neal's murders in comparison with the colder calculation of Berti's. It is because of the awakening of this repressed memory of Neal's that the murders come passionately, and are more primal, using many different objects such as axes, rather than the shaving blade of Berti's. Again, it is through duality and comparison that the brutality of Neal is highlighted. Of note also is that within the second flashback, it isn't clear if the murder of the abusing woman is truth or the revenge-fantasy of the young Neal - a fantasy fulfilled in his novels, and in his murders now.
The film has Argento playfully respond to critics of his early giallo flicks, who stated that he has a problem with women as his films such as Cat O'Nine Tails always had beautiful women killed in gruesome detail. The scene earlier in the film has a critic of Neal directly use this argument in Neal's novels - except here the critics are correct, his novels are subconscious manifestations of his hate towards women. Do I think Argento is 'owning up' to hating women in the film? God no. Argento has no issue with women, but I love the playful meta-nature of the film, as Argento almost vilifies these critics, almost saying that "Yes - you are right. Let me make a film about it."
P.S I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the musical theme of Tenebrae, performed by Goblin and featured best in the scaling crane-shot of the two lesbians' house early in the film, was sampled (surprisingly directly) in French electro-duo Justice's song Phantom. It's a kickass song and one I've enjoyed a lot before even knowing it was a sample. Put it this way, Justice have great taste in not only film, but film soundtracks.
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