I caught this at the film festival last year. When I heard it was coming out in theatres, I had to see it again. At the time, I considered writing something, but I just found myself writing questions. Rather than throw some garbage out to the world, I decided to wait and write a vaguely coherent trash pile.
Watching In Fabric for a second time, I was able to give with myself over to it - I was able to enjoy its effects rather than noting the technical ways in which these effects were created.
In Fabric takes the hyper-stylisation of giallo and uses its particular obsession with aesthetics to create a dark fable about capitalism and consumerism, as the filmmakers follow the dress from one character to another.
Set almost entirely in interiors, in an undetermined pre-digital era, the film almost feels like one of the portmanteau films Amicus studios used to put out in the 70s: one of the story threads concerns Sheila, a middle-aged divorcee who is looking for love. Played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets and Lies), Sheila is the down-to-earth centre of the chaos around her. Her ex has moved on with another woman; her son is too self-absorbed to pay any attention to her. She also has to deal with two all-powerful and terrifyingly relaxed managers (Steve Oram and Barry Adamson), who note every minute change in her daily life, and measuring each minor deviation against the potential productivity of the bank.
Jean-Baptiste gives Sheila a world-weariness and sense of yearning that grounds the viewer in her everyday dilemmas.
I have to say, acting in this kind of heightened context requires such a delicate balance. I watched another movie, Slice, which aims for its own heightened tone, but it never finds its footing, particularly in terms of the acting. Having that film in the back of my mind really highlighted how difficult it is to hit the right tone.
Reg, a sad sack who is belittled by everyone. Engaged to Babs (Hayley Squires), he is another lonely soul who stumbles into the dress's path. Younger, and more well-off, the couple supposedly have their future ahead of them, yet their life comes across as unsatisfied and barren.
Neither of the films protagonists for the beauty standards of the store’s catalogue, and express dissatisfaction with themselves compared with the specifications of the dress. There is a hilarious scene in which the store clerks caress and massage a mannequin's body while the store owner pleasures himself: even the store’s crew are under the spell of these unreal bursts standards.
To call it an abstract re-working of giallo feels limiting. The mannequins recall Mario Bava's OG giallo, Blood and Black Lace, but that is one reference in a movie that feels beyond easy categorisation.
There is little context to make the movie more of an overt genre piece: we get a set-up of a death in the past, the implication that the dress is either haunted or cursed. Thankfully, this movie leans into the disorientation of classic Giallo without the tired exposition dumps that make most giallo far less interesting.
Ultimately what is worth emphasising is that this movie is hilarious. The two Orwellian bank managers who dominate Sheila's workplace; Reg's droning monologues; the antics of the fashion house; even the way the dress transports itself around. This movie is laugh-out-loud funny.
The premise almost feels like a dare - imagine a giallo, but instead of a killer with black gloves, it's a blood red dress. Strickland frames and shoots it like a classic movie monster (in shadows and shown in pieces). It could be a joke premise for a Grindhouse parody trailer.
A deadpan delight, In Fabric is hilarious and terrifying in equal measure.
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