After he witnesses an attempted murder of a woman (Eva Renzi) by a raincoated stranger in an art gallery, American journalist Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) becomes a person of interest in the police’s hunt for a serial killer who is killing beautiful young women.
While Sam tries to uncover the identity of the killer, he is plagued with doubts about his initial sighting of the killer in the art gallery.
What is he forgetting?
Dario Argento was one of the first filmmakers I knew the name of. Years before I watched any of his films, Argento and the giallo genre were this strange, intriguing thing that I could not access.
I was able to watch Suspiria at university. I never had the concentration to check out more of his work - there were so many films and directors whose work I wanted to see, and Argento fell away.
I have watched Suspiria multiple times, including a screening where Goblin appeared in the flesh to play the score live.
A couple weeks ago, my local arthouse theatre held a triple bill screening of Argento’s ‘animal’ trilogy - and I finally had the perfect excuse to dip back into his filmography, with no distractions.
First, Giallo.
For the uninitiated, Giallo (or yellow) is a genre of Italian murder mystery thrillers primarily made in the 60s-80s which foreground more explicit murder sequences. There are more recurring elements (a killer with black gloves, dreamlike plotting), but by and large these are the unifying elements. The name comes from the yellow covers on printings of mystery novels (by writers like Edgar Wallace) which inspired the genre.
There are giallo which came before (Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace being a prime example), but The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is seen as a major highpoint in the genre’s rise to prominence.
If one is familiar with other, later gialli, or just aware of the popular image of the genre as stylised body count movies, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is rather modest.
More of a traditional murder mystery, the film is filled with scenes of police using technology to investigate the crime. The film even makes time for our hero’s own investigation to run into dead ends.
Tony Musante is a solid lead - he brings an air of vulnerability to the cookie-cutter seeker hero.
While the acting is fine, this is a movie about the cinematic image - its beauty and its style, even in its depiction of sex and violence.
It is more narratively conventional than the films which follow, but Crystal Plumage is a movie about the image and memory, where nothing is what it appears on the surface.
The film pokes fun at the hypocrisy of public presentation, as Sam is pulled into a seedy world of hidden sexual and violent impulses. There is an implication of a generational divide, as our young hero takes time from his investigation to enjoy dalliances with his girlfriend, while the antagonist hides their desires behind closed doors.
Sex and death are interwoven throughout the film - from the staging of the young woman held down by black-gloved hands as her clothes are torn open, to the main clue - a painting which immortalises the killer’s traumatic origins.
Ennio Morricone - who scored all three films in the animal trilogy - constructs a score around a wordless, sung lullabye (referencing the childhood trauma of the killer). It creates a disjunct with the violence and sexuality onscreen.
Highly influential since its release, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a uniquely cinematic nightmare.
No comments:
Post a Comment