REVIEWS
Berberian Sound Studio Reviewed by Allan Hunter
The second feature from Katalin Varga director Peter Strick- land is an idiosyncratic, impeccably crafted mindbender that shifts between the beguiling and the bemusing. Playful and provocative in the way it evokes disreputable Italian giallo films from the 1970s, it should easily amuse dedicated film buffs though a general audience is more likely to conclude there is less here than meets the eye or the ear. Further festival exposure seems guaranteed after a world
premiere screening at Edinburgh, followed by Locarno and now Toronto, but commercial prospects are less assured for what may be dubbed an ‘interesting’, slightly mystifying art- house curio. Strickland shows an affectionate nostalgia for a world
before digital as mild-mannered English sound engineer Gilderoy (Jones) arrives at a shabby sound studio in Italy to work on a gruesome delight by the name of The Equestrian Vortex. There are echoes of Lucio Fulci in its florid tale of witches, torture and vengeance. Strickland focuses on the distant tactile pleasures of cel-
luloid and Steenbecks, magnetic tape and reel-to-reel recorders as Gilderoy works his magic to create the sound- track for demanding director Santini (Mancino). Watermel- ons, cabbages and a vast array of vegetables are used to create the sounds of squelching and stabbing demanded by a film that we are never permitted to see. Like a paranoid outsider in a Polanski classic, Gilderoy is
also very much at sea in his Italian sound studio. There seems little chance of payment for his efforts and he is con- stantly thwarted by bureaucracy and indolence each time he tries to assert his authority. Is it any wonder that his dedi- cated professionalism tips over into obsession, as he takes comfort in letters from his mother and visions of England’s green and pleasant lands, and we are left to conclude that he is totally adrift from his moorings. Often very funny in its first half hour, Berberian Sound
Studio never seems entirely clear whether its principal focus is on satirising Italian film-making of the period or develop- ing a creepy, unsettling horror yarn. It is too odd, detached and ambiguous to be considered a
scary movie and gradually loses its hold as the story unfolds even if Toby Jones’ shy, bewildered Gilderoy remains an engaging figure.
September 7, 2012 Screen International at Toronto 23 n
VANGUARD
UK. 2012. 92mins Director/screenplay Peter Strickland Production companies Illumination Films, Warp X Films International sales The Match Factory,
www.the-
match-factory.com Producers KeithGriffiths, Mary Burke Executive producers RobinGutch, Hugo Heppell, Katherine Butler, Michael Weber CinematographyNic Knowland Editor ChrisDickens Production designer Jennifer Kernke Music Broadcast Main cast Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco, Antonio Mancino, Fatma Mohamed, Salvatore Li Causi
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