SJSondergaard Reviews

Matthias & Maxime (2019)

Don't Leave Me this Way ...

[3 January 2021]

A group of former high school friends gathers at a French-Canadian country retreat to swim, get drunk and hit a few bongs. During the course of the evening Matthias (a lawyer) and Maxime (a bartender) are hoodwinked into locking lips on camera for an "expressionist" film project put together by the amusingly annoying younger sister of one of their group. Reluctantly they comply. The deed done and the weekend over, both return to the routine of their daily lives, but as autumn gives way to the first snow of winter, a chill has descended on their friendship.

What follows is an absorbing character-study of the two men; Matthias representing Order (professional at a city law firm, dating a woman named Sarah, and a stickler for the correct use of grammar) to Maxime's Chaos (single, scruffy and struggling to care for an addict mother.) Friends since childhood, they are presented almost as a long-term couple within the group. As Maxime prepares to leave Montreal for a new life in Australia it is in Matthias that we begin to see signs that something is amiss as his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. So what exactly is at the root of his unease? The kiss is a bit of a McGuffin, the hook which serves to throw light on the bigger issue of Maxime's going away, with clues pointing to its cause and effect.

Director Xavier Dolan (the endearingly shambolic Maxime) explores the relationship between the two protagonists by taking the unusual step of separating them for most of the film, which covers twelve days leading to Max's leaving party, but takes his time to embellish the slight drama with enough symbolism, visual cues and smokescreens to keep things interesting; a change of clothes before filming their smooch sees them switch colours (red to blue and vice versa); Matthias takes a night-time swim and fetches up exhausted on the wrong shore; Max gets drunk and watches as the birthmark spilling like blood from his eye vanishes in the mirror before him. Scenes are framed by windows, lenses, mirrors, hands, giving the sense of peering in on a slowly unfolding mystery. Mundane conversations, on second viewing, are imbued with connotation (note the opening line of dialogue).

This is not, then, a film full of vacuous men sitting around with their shirts off, clinking wine glasses in swimming pools or flailing around in scenes of a softcore nature. There are, instead, some terrific performances from all concerned, intertwined with wry humour, and the dynamics and interplay between the larger group of friends feels genuinely authentic.

If the film falters slightly it's that the ending is, alas, ambiguous (Dolan thinks it's clear where things are headed as the credits roll, but then he wrote it.) There is a cathartic moment between the two men late in proceedings not unlike Emma Thompson's famous snotting scene from Sense and Sensibility (and with a serious amount of added smoulder) but when the final piece of the jigsaw slots into place - during a phone call on Max's final day as he attends to a last-minute detail prior to his departure - the picture remains incomplete.

At its core, the film is a beautifully understated snapshot of two people separately going through the same moment in their lives and the shadow it throws over each of them, as those who know them look on in puzzlement, and holds up a mirror to something we are all sometimes guilty of; hiding our feelings so convincingly that we unwittingly become the architect of our own and others' misery.

Are you ready for your close-up?

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)

Glad to Be Grey

[15 March 2009]

As with the previous two entries in the unofficial Animal Trilogy, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is short on explicit gore but brimming with atmosphere and artistic ingenuity, with set-piece murders primed and mined for maximum tension. It was with this film that Argento began to cement his particular style and is something of a crucible for future ideas. The murder of Roberto's maid in a local park foreshadows John Saxon's fate in Tenebre, and with its sudden lapses in time and attempted escape through the cobwebbed space between two buildings (to a soundtrack of whispers and sighs) it also sows seeds that would flourish in Suspiria. Other visual motifs (crimson curtains, extreme close-ups, inanimate objects suddenly wielded by a seemingly maniacal camera) would be repeated or re-jigged in Deep Red, Phenomena and Opera.

Argento's original intention was to have a gay protagonist and though the character of Roberto is still open to such a reading - his victimisation being as a result of a fear of being outed (as a murderer) has obvious correlations (note also Brandon's shaggy mane v Farmer's gamine crop or the rather tame bathtub scene with Francine Racette which sees Roberto playfully seducing his mirror image) - the more overt references are passed to Jean-Pierre Marielle, who brings immense likability to a small role and whose swish factor is tempered by a steely determination to finally cracking a case. A frosty Farmer acquits herself well, though Brandon is merely okay. Argento's fascination with weird science (here ludicrous by design but ingenious in execution) gives the film its animal-themed title, and the finale boasts one of his greatest sequences - a stunning, slow-motion shot of a car impacting with the back of a lorry, which marries chillingly beautiful aesthetics to Hollywood folklore, scored with Morricone's haunting "Come un Madrigale".

Four Flies is a solid giallo and an important entry in the Director's canon which bears repeated viewing, blurring gender roles and sexual identity, adding subtext and hit and miss humour, asylum flashbacks, well-executed deaths and a recurring nightmare in the form of a sun-bleached, public beheading - the significance of which turns out to be twofold. It also has in spades what a good Argento giallo conveys like no other, that chilling feeling of something wholly alien on the loose in human form.

What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)

Daughter of Tears

[4 April 2008]

The opening to "Solange?" has the ring of familiarity to it. The setting is outdoors on a riverbank, the characters are Elizabeth (winsome English Rose) and Enrico (passionate Italian male). The camera closes in on Elizabeth's eyes as she finally succumbs to the older man's advances when images flash suddenly across the screen - a girl running, an outstretched hand, the flash of a blade - courtesy of some seamless editing. It's an exercise in how unsettling something can be when occurring on a bright sunny day. It also employs Argento's recurrent motif of skewed perception. Elizabeth (Cristina Galbó) is unsure of what she's actually seen and Enrico (Fabio Testi), exasperated by what he assumes are delay tactics, brings the boat to shore.

The following morning a body has been found on the same stretch of the Thames. A girl from Elizabeth's school has been knifed to death in a manner that will have you crossing your legs for the duration. Having left behind a piece of evidence which places him near the scene of the crime, and later caught on camera among a throng of onlookers by a TV crew covering the story, Enrico (the girls' tutor) finds himself with some explaining to do. It's not long before others fall victim to the maniac, and as pieces of the puzzle are uncovered little by little, the mystery seems tied to a particular clique of students and their association with the enigmatic girl in the title, who left the school suddenly the year before.

Right from the start we're in very assured hands. This is a giallo which pretty much has it all, balancing the stranger in a strange land figure (Enrico) compelled by circumstance to find out his own answers to a series of brutal murders by a black-gloved killer, with a police procedural element which for once is treated with absolute seriousness and a deft touch. Joachim Fuchsberger (Inspector Barth) gives arguably the best portrayal in the genre of an investigator in charge, being neither bumbling comic relief nor bullish, misogynist caricature. Everything is treated with care and reverence, relying on solid fingerprint policing rather than outlandish pseudo-science, which in itself raises the film a few notches above average. Every clue, every red herring, every motive is duly noted and accounted for and used to drive the story along a series of ever darker revelations.

Along the way, Dallamano is careful to anticipate our anticipation and gives little twists throughout to narrative and character. Enrico's wife Herta (Karin Baal) starts life almost as a parody of both the wronged wife and the Teutonic blonde (think Helga from 'allo 'allo with her blouse buttoned up) gradually becoming a more nuanced, genuinely sympathetic individual. Enrico (as the tutor engaged in an affair with one of his students) is painted in shades of grey, rather than as the complete louse we might expect, and when the illusive Solange (whose presence here is something akin to Hitchcock's "smoking gun") makes her entrance via a quirk of serendipity shared with the viewer alone, she resembles a pallid version of Botticelli's Venus, the subtlety of which only becomes clear with time. Even perfectly innocent London street names ("Evelyn Gardens") take on more sinister connotations.

What impresses most is how Dallamano - mindful of his choice of victim - manages to foster a feeling of genuine shock in everyone right down to the minor players, and makes some effort to deal with the after-effects of the killings. A scene where Barth interviews the shell-shocked parents of the first girl is sensitively handled and admirably underplayed. In a neat piece of editing the father's reaction to the facts of his daughter's demise is transported into the following scene at the girl's funeral. The sleazier aspects of this "schoolgirl slasher" are, on the face of it at least, mitigated somewhat by the fact the schoolgirls are actually eighteen (and everyone looks about five years older than they are). The requisite nudity is largely confined to the girls' shower room, and beyond mere titillation these scenes epitomise the film's undercurrents of secrecy and confession, as the girls share whispered confidences while we are led by the camera into collusion with the local peeping tom, POV-style, through a hole in the wall.

In doing so the film points to the viewer and to itself via a form of oblique morality play. It's no coincidence that the river bank murder and Elizabeth's further recall occur during the film's two seduction scenes, symbolically the threat being as much to Elizabeth's virtue from Enrico's ardent wedding tackle (intent on a little death of its own) as much as from the killer's knife. Placed in context, "Solange?" is set in a period when society was still coming to grips with all the swinging that began a decade before. On the surface it's a gripping Italian thriller with all the key elements in place and where the killer's true motive holds water, but at its core it can be viewed as a subversion of the giallo genre, lamenting on innocence lost and the accelerated haste with which child becomes adult (often stumbling in the process) both then and now, leaving its audience to ponder some uncomfortable truths. This is an outstanding entry in the genre and an affecting slice of cinema, with quality dubbing and a widescreen presentation that makes the most of its outdoor settings creating a nostalgia for a London long gone.

The Fifth Cord (1971)

The Geometry of Shadows

[28 March 2008]

"I am going to commit murder," whispers our killer, as the camera flits around the jaded revellers at a New Year shindig. "I can imagine the thrill and pleasure I will experience as I stalk my victim..." Shortly after, John Lubbock (Maurizio Bonuglia) survives an attack in an underpass on his way home, and journalist Andrea Bild (Franco Nero), a fellow attendee, decides to investigate. Then a second party goer - invalid Doctor's wife Sophia Bini (Rossella Falk) - is attacked and killed in her home, and Andrea's elderly editor is found dead in a local park, both bodies accompanied by the killer's calling card (a black glove with first one then subsequent fingers cut off). Suddenly, the outspoken, hard-drinking journalist finds himself rising swiftly up the list of suspects.

What raises The Fifth Cord above the average giallo is striking cinematography and a couple of genuinely suspense-filled murders. The sequence involving the Doctor's wife is the most characteristic of the genre. Taking place in a huge and intimidating bedroom it also evokes the Gothic feel of old Hollywood and the memory of a certain Mrs de Winter. Bazzoni expertly handles the build-up of tension, getting the unfortunate Mrs Bini out of bed and crawling along the floor in a rising panic as first her wheelchair then telephone (her lifeline) vanish into the shadows. There's an almost supernatural element at play here. When the familiar gloved hands suddenly appear either side of the screen to slowly descend from behind and wrap themselves around her throat, they seem almost disembodied.

In contrast, the rest of the film is a study in modernity. Everything is concrete and glass, clean lines and polished surfaces. Every shot is carefully and deliberately lensed and filled with geometric shapes and patterns. Edges and shadows converge to corral Nero as the finger points increasingly in his direction. A scene in which he meets with the investigating officer in a subterranean parking lot is particularly well done, where the frosted windows behind the actors are reflected in the roof of the car in front and join with the widescreen framing to form a cage. The ending comprises tough-guy fisticuffs and a pulse-quickening chase sequence through the cadaverous wreck of an abandoned factory where Nero finally unmasks the black-coated killer, having already deduced the real motive, which twists the opening voice-over in a new and ambiguous light.

This is a solid, visually impressive giallo, if at times a little less engaging than it should be. The characters, other than Andrea, aren't effectively introduced or given enough screen time and are too often simply referred to by name, so it's difficult to remember who's who and why we should care. Consequently the narrative sometimes lacks clarity, getting itself into a bit of a muddle during the mid-section, and having spent most of the film presuming events have unfolded over a matter of days only to discover the killings have been occurring for roughly a five month period is a little jarring. There's nothing to suggest the passage of time, though the static environment does correspond with Bazzoni's austere vision.

A cold and relatively bleak film, The Fifth Cord makes the most of its angular urban settings to say something about the fractured nature of modern city life, from Nero's world-weary alcoholic loner to the estranged Doctor and his wife to hardworking single parent Helene (Silvia Monti). A world filled with acquaintances as opposed to friends, where people choose the warm bodies of strangers (filmed here with restraint rather than a gratuitous eye for sleaze) over the ones they may have at home. Nero, though at times out-and-out brutish, brings gravitas (and a suitably chiseled visage) to his genre-standard character, and Monti, in a limited role, manages to be strong and insightful and can keep her head in a crisis, helping to counterbalance the popular view of women in gialli as merely window dressing or cannon fodder. The English dubbing is of a high standard, with Nero providing his own voice. Overall it's more of a straightforward crime caper than a horror yarn, but worth checking out for the arresting visuals alone.

The House with Laughing Windows (1976)

Oh Sisters, Where Art Thou?

[17 March 2008]

*Minor plot details, no actual spoilers*

Antonio, recently reacquainted with his friend Stefano who has come to renovate a fresco in the local church depicting the Martyrdom of St Sebastian, has discovered something he shouldn't. Something is rotten in the Italian backwater, but before he can divulge his suspicions he finds himself on the wrong side of a top floor window and plummets to his death while a shadow lurks behind the curtains. So far, so giallo. The gruesome work of art is apparently key to uncovering some secret harboured by the town's residents, so the bulk of the film is then devoted to delving into the bloody back-story of the deceased Artist and his two insane sisters. The main problem here is that the film finds the central mystery much more mysterious than it actually is, and doesn't seem to realise it's given most of the details away. As the Painter's story unfolds - murky as it is - the important stuff (that the gruesome acts depicted in the artist's work might be real) is either implied by the promotional blurb, the opening credits sequence or already anticipated by our over-active imaginations.

What the film sorely needs in the absence of any real action is some clarification as to what it is we're actually supposed to be intrigued by while we wait for the body count to rise. There is a throwaway line later in the film which goes a long way to informing the story as a whole, and cements in our minds the very real danger at hand, but it comes a bit late in the day. Used earlier it would have given Stefano's amateur sleuthing some much needed impetus (Antonio's is too mundane and isolated a death and seems forgotten almost immediately). What lies at the heart of the film then, once the back-story has been told (and after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing) is Stefano's failure to deduce the identity of the sisters and the consequences therein. So everything depends on the final reveal. These are obviously characters we've already met - that's how these things work - but a real rapport needed to be established between Stefano and the peripheral players to give the nature of the revelation (which has been sketchily sign-posted) a much greater emotional punch when it comes. As a result the effect is diluted. Ultimately the biggest mystery is why the town is keeping its secrets in the first place.

On the plus side, coupled with the brooding atmospherics, it is lovely to look at. The camera work isn't overly elaborate but understated works in the film's favour. There are some nice shots - one in particular where Stefano walks round the side of a house with his back to it, so we discover, a moment before he does, that the title isn't simply a metaphor. A palette of greys and smoky blues blends with the thin winter light, with sparing splashes of crimson and orange ochre (emulating the look of Hitchcock's Frenzy). The artist's monologue which accompanies a retrospective sepia-tinged slaughter during the opening credits and used again later on is effectively lurid (you'll need a shower afterwards, followed by dinner and flowers) and the full extent of one haunted local's involvement with the murderous trio some thirty-odd years earlier lends the film some much needed emotional resonance. Most of all Avati deserves credit for the St Sebastian reference. It seems a pretty innocuous stylistic choice, but there is a significance here which, though not essential, provides one of the true, subtle revelations of the entire film. Provided you put two and two together and know your saints.

The House with Laughing Windows was for so long the 'lost giallo' and consequently it seems a bit of giallo envy has bolstered its reputation as a forgotten masterpiece. In terms of pure film-making that's short of the mark. There are too many uneven moments. Characters disappear ominously, then reappear without acknowledgement. Things go bump in the night which we discover second hand rather than getting to witness, and there's a curious did they/didn't they? (have it off) tryst between Stefano and the town's departing school teacher (if they did he apparently likes to keep not only his socks on but his entire dapper three-piece). That isn't to say it's a total bomb by any means either. It depends how invested you find yourself in the Painter's story, and to some extent how prepared you are to suspend disbelief. If you approach with expectations suitably tempered it'll probably do the business. Just sit back and soak up the quietly unsettling atmosphere without thinking too much, but be warned, a great time is not assured.