Giallo (2009) Reviews

• Eerie film about an Inspector and a woman who join forces to rescue her sister from an ominous killer

  ma-cortes2012-03-04

  Acceptable gory killing film in which Dario Argento demonstrates his penchant for original ideas and creative directing . In Torino, Celine ,Italy, a woman named Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner , Roman Polanski's wife) fears her sister , a fashion model girl named Celine (Elsa Pataky, at that time Brody's girlfriend) , may have been abducted . Obstinate Inspector Enzo Avolfi (Adrien Brody, also producer) gets some clues and fears it's worse . When a Japanese young girl is found at nearby a fountain, Enzo and Linda along with Chief Inspector named Mori (Robert Miano) find that the woman is calling the sadistic kidnapper's skin is "Yellow" . Both of whom team up to rescue her from a sadistic murderous known only as Yellow, or Giallo . The Inspector along with Linda start following the tracks that lead a cab man who might have jaundice and they go to a hospital. Classic though average Gialli with imaginatively staged gory killings by the master of horror, the talented writer/director Dario Argento . Italian cult director Dario Argento, master of arty gore, brings this eerie and stylish story plagued with depraved gore murders . Exciting film with stylish , effective aesthetic that packs lots of gore , guts , chilling assassinations and twists plots . This is a trademark terror work for the Horrormeister Argento with high tension quotient and equally elevated suspense by means of an ever-fluid camera that achieves colorful shots well photographed by the cameraman Frederic Fasano. Noteworthy for intelligent edition work that tightens the mystery , glimmer use of color and distinctive utilization of shock images . Sometimes weak screenplay is added to nice but gory special effects . Thrilling musical score by Marco Weba with suspenseful whispers combining to fortissimo soundtrack which help achieve incredible creepy moments . The terror pieces are well staged with eye-opening flair-play and contain obscure tracks to the denouement of the script . This scary motion picture is professionally directed by Dario Argento , though uninspired and with no too much originality. Argento is one of those film-makers (other examples are Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda ) who set off simple for frightening us to death . His period of biggest hits were the 70s when he directed the animals trilogy : ¨Four flies over gray velvet¨, ¨The cat of nine tails¨, ¨Bird with the crystal plumage¨, after he directed some masterpieces as ¨Suspiria¨, ¨Inferno¨ , ¨Tenebre¨ and of course ¨Deep red¨ , one of the best ¨Giallo . In 1995 Argento made a comeback to the horror genre with ¨La Sindrome Di Stendhal (1996)¨ and then by another version of ¨The phantom of the Opera¨ (1998) both of which starred by his daughter Asia Argento . Most recently, Argento directed a number of 'giallo' mystery thrillers which include Insomnio (2001), ¨Il Cartaio (2004)¨, and ¨Ti Piace Hitchcock?¨ (2005), as well as two creepy , supernatural-themed episodes of the USA TV cable anthology series "Masters of Horror". Furthermore , to his Gothic and violent style of storytelling , ¨La Terza Madre (2007)¨ has a lot of references to the previous two movies as 'Suspiria and Inferno' which is a must for fans of the trilogy . And finally directed this so-so film called ¨Giallo¨ . This bloody fun plenty of graphic gore and weirdness may not be for all tastes but to be liked for Argento connoisseurs especially .

• Kiss kiss no more

  whiggles2009-06-26

  If a single trait characterizes Dario Argento's 21st century output, it's its self-referentiality. Always a cine-literate filmmaker, his recent material has verged almost on self-parody. Amid all this, a generation of filmmakers have grown up with his films and been influenced by them, some more profoundly than others. Some, like Tim Burton, have assimilated his visual style into their own. Others have been more flippant in their appropriation of Argentoisms, with Quentin Tarantino lifting the music from The Bird with the Crystal Plumage for use in Death Proof, and Diablo Cody including a conversation debating the merits of Argento relative to H.G. Lewis in Juno. In effect, "Argento" has become something of a buzzword for a certain type of movie brat: a slightly edgy (but not too edgy) name they can mention to show that they're a little off the beaten track (but not too far off). Oddly enough, Giallo represents something of a hybridization of the director's self-referentiality and the sort of fan idolatry that champions his films for their more superficial elements while ignoring the qualities that truly mark them out. Although the first credit at the end of the film reads "written and directed by Dario Argento", the original script in fact originated from two American fans, Jim Agnew and Sean Keller, with Argento essentially being brought on as a director for hire. This is not the first time this has happened: the two episodes he directed for the largely disappointing Masters of Horror series also originated from other writers, much to their detriment. (If Pelts had been directed by Eli Roth, I doubt it would have been appreciably different.) While Giallo's script is nothing remarkable, the overall execution is handled with considerably more flair than Jenifer or Pelts. This may be because Argento is on familiar stomping ground, with the Italian locations lending an air of natural class. Giallo is far from the bland, anonymous piece of work for hire that many feared it would be. While Frederic Fasano's cinematography lacks the verve of a Tovoli or even a Debie, and Marco Werba's Herrmannesque score alternates between effective and intrusive, there are little Argentoisms throughout, mainly in the lightly humorous moments. Likewise, an early sequence at an opera recalls Argento's 1987 masterpiece of the same name, while the oddly ambiguous final frame is reminiscent of The Cat O' Nine Tails. That said, Giallo's most direct counterpart is The Card Player, and it's tempting to see them as two sides of the same coin. However, while The Card Player was clinical, high-tech and almost bloodless, Giallo goes in the opposite direction. Its set design hearkens back to the past, from Avolfi's dingy basement office to the foregrounding of Turin's picturesque monuments and buildings. The violence is also ramped up a notch, and it's tempting to view the film as Argento's reaction to the recent spate of so-called "torture porn" movies. The director has made conflicting statements as to his opinion of these films, but the lengthy scenes of Elsa Pataky being menaced and tortured in the killer's grimy underground lair are more reminiscent of Saw or Hostel than anything in Argento's past filmography. And there's the rub: despite being marketed as a return to the genre that made a name for Argento in the 1970s, Giallo... well, isn't actually a giallo. The plot operates more as a cross between a cop thriller and a gore-soaked torture flick, the title referring solely to the killer's jaundiced skin. His face is seen almost from the start and his identity is ultimately not hugely important. Far more interesting is the way in which he and Avolfi are constructed as two sides of the same coin, both pariahs who operate in dark underground lairs and have suffered violent, traumatic pasts. As with much of his past work, Argento seems to be actively encouraging a Jungian reading. At times, this becomes a little too on the nose, with the casting of the killer... well, it's an intriguing choice but ultimately one that will either baffle people or have them slapping their foreheads at its obviousness. With one notable exception, the cast acquit themselves reasonably well. The elephant in the room is Adrien Brody, who not only receives top billing but also an executive producer credit, performing uncredited script doctoring duties and making key decisions about the score (including nixing Argento's regular collaborator Claudio Simonetti). His role is an odd one, and it's far from the vanity project I expected. Avolfi is not particularly pleasant: he's distant, smarmy and reckless, and an act he committed in the past further blurs the line between him and the killer. Unfortunately, the specifics of this event, revealed around two-third of the way through the film, sent the audience at the screening I attended into fits of hysterics. More problematic in my mind, however, is Brody's performance. He seems to be imitating any number of 40s film noir detectives, but comes across as a mumbling buffoon whose reactions and line delivery always seem to be at odds with what's actually happening. He's not the first Oscar-winning actor to work with Argento, but he IS one of Argento's least convincing protagonists. Giallo is a decent offering from a director whose work of late has been decidedly patchy. While I'm sure the usual battle lines will be drawn, with fans alternating between branding it a return to form and proclaiming it to be proof that he is a has-been, the truth is somewhere in the middle. No, it's not the next Profondo Rosso, but anyone who expected otherwise would simply be deluding themselves. It's substantially better than either of Argento's Masters of Horror outings, a step up from Mother of Tears, and a superior thriller to Do You Like Hitchcock? It's also more engaging than the overrated Sleepless and about on par with the underrated The Card Player, a film that for me improves with each subsequent viewing. Problems aside, Giallo is surprisingly good fun.

• Routine slasher affair not worthy of the master's name and I say this with the affection of a longtime fan

  chaos-rampant2009-10-07

  The high point in the film comes midway in the form of Adrian Brody's childhood flashback: the camera heaves this side and that inside an amber-lit room as though floating in the air while a music box lullaby that brings back memories of Goblin's School at Night theme from Profondo Rosso chimes in the background. Other than that, the movie might as well have been called "Routine Slasher" because there's nothing that recalls the glorious days of the Italian giallo here, no wink or homage or black-gloved killer stalking distraught heroines in kitsch/chic Rome apartments, countryside villas, and medieval architecture and certainly none of the Technicolor phantasmagoria Argento and his peers conjured on celluloid 30 years ago because anyone who has followed Argento's career knows he has been working in dark muted DV canvases for the past 10 years, this absence of style flooded with wooden acting, bad English from non-English speaking actors, and a script the sum of plot contrivance happenstance and logic jumps. Some will argue these have been staples of Argento's career and I will disagree because their place has always been peripheral to a certain grand guignol aesthetic by whose outrageousness, stylistic or otherwise, not only have they been relegated to the margins but they have made perfect "sense" there in the margins as part of Argento's style (or Italian horror film-making in general). If Mother of Tears was a bold step in the direction of Phenomena's schizophrenic conclusion, this is a step backwards to the undistinguished workmanlike nature of Il Cartaio and Ti Piace Hitchcock. Everything here is generic. The score sounds like Batman Returns throwaways (Claudio Simonetti's absence is sorely felt), the villain is a curious mixture of pathetic and creepy, Argento's stylized violence is conspicuously absent. This is a serial killer movie trying to balance between crime procedural and slasher such as one may find in Lionsgate's STD catalogue. If you're looking for the giallo homage the title promises, you'll find it in Sleepless. This is a routine affair not worthy of the master's name or his fans' time and money.

• Not quite what you might expect...

  Red-Barracuda2009-06-29

  The latest movie from Dario Argento, the master of the giallo film, is called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Giallo. Perhaps influenced by the self-referential Tarantino/Rodriguez movie Grindhouse, Giallo is another film named after an exploitation genre. What IS somewhat surprising, however, is that Giallo isn't really a giallo at all. Argento seems to have instead opted to have a go at the sub-genre known as torture porn. This is a bit perverse from a man whose output has been made up almost exclusively of gialli, or at the very least non-giallo movies that retain many of the conventions of the genre, i.e. the mystery killer attacks of the supernatural horror films Suspiria and Inferno. So it may seem like a joke on the director's part that Giallo isn't a giallo. Why doesn't it fit into the genre? Well, the main reason is the fact that the killer's identity is revealed early in the film; gialli can vary greatly in content and style but the one thing they must retain is an element of mystery and this film abandons that early on. Instead the film adopts the approach of the torture porn sub-genre, of films like Hostel, dwelling as it does in scenes of torture rather than murder set-pieces. This extends to the grungy and grimy look and colour scheme; we don't have the rich, vibrant colours of Argento of old, or the inventive camera-work that he was once famous for. Giallo is quite an ugly looking film, fitting perhaps as the title villain (Yellow/Giallo) is one ugly dude; he looks a bit like the bastard child of Carlos Puyol and Mark Knopfler, only much, much worse. He is very repellent but I, for one, much prefer Argento's androgynous black leather clad maniacs of old. I also preferred their HINT of sexual deviancy, as opposed to the spectacle of Yellow masturbating in front of his laptop to images of bloodied women. Too much Dario, too much... For those of you hoping for a homage to Argento's gialli classics of old, I have to sadly say this is not it. I have read that Argento was actually a director for hire in this movie and that would not surprise me as the feeling I had watching this was that the director wasn't entirely giving his all in this film. It all seems a bit half-hearted. And that extends to the acting performances too, which are a bit stiff throughout. Although I don't see much point in saying too much about this as its par for the course with Argento movies, his scripts and direction of actors have been notoriously uneven throughout his career. However, the same cannot be said of the soundtracks in his previous films, the music from the likes of Deep Red and Suspiria is legendary. Here, sadly, the score is a bit uninspired. Not bad exactly, just unmemorable and workmanlike. The look of the film too is very pedestrian. Sadly, not very Italian looking. On the plus side it's briskly paced and is never actually boring. And some of the unintentional silliness is really quite enjoyable if you approach it with the right frame of mind. The flash-back scene near the end of the film had some people in the audience at the screening I attended in absolute hysterics, although, in fairness, this is not something that will necessarily surprise Argentophiles, as much of his output does contain a fair bit of daftness. It has to be said that Adrien Brody does put in a very hammy performance as the cop, which is almost in Frank Drebin territory. Although some of the humour was surely intentional too, the scene where the coroner and Brody light up cigarettes over the corpse was hysterical. I suspect there cannot be a smoking ban in effect in Italy. Of additional note is the rather strange ending. I won't describe it but it does seem really wrong, and dare I say it, pointless, I will leave you to be the judge of this for yourself though. Sadly, I don't think Giallo is going to kick-start the moribund Italian film industry into producing superior horror and thriller films. It isn't really a return to form for the director either. But, ultimately, perhaps last night's audience reaction wasn't too far off the mark. There was quite a bit of laughter at some of the sillier scenes, however, at the end there was a round of applause. And I must admit I joined in too because despite the myriad of faults in this latest Argento offering, I did quite enjoy myself.

• Call me a fanboy and say that I have a bad taste in movies.

  Giallo19632016-06-06

  Because I like this movie. After all the bad ratings and negative reviews of Argento's latest movies I was very reluctant to watch Dario's movies from 'Opera' and on wards; but after I watched 'La Terza Madre' and 'Il Cartaio' I decided to start ignoring all the bad reviews and all the comments on how "the once great Italian Horror director has declined". Indeed, it appears the only movies people wanna compare Dario Argento movies is to the other Dario Argento movies. I've grown weary of all this bitching about how he doesn't make his movies as exotic, artistic or otherworldly as he used to make them in the mid 70's to late 80's. People don't seem to want to move on and have an open mind to how a director can make movies. Sure, it is a basic plot for a Giallo movie but it is still an original story, with compelling and interesting characters. The story is thought provoking and chilling, it tells the story of an ugly man who murders beautiful women. Beautiful because he likes to destroy what he lacks: beauty. It is reminiscent of Leatherface from 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Now, the other half of the story centers around Inspector Enzo Avolfi who is investigating the murders, who by the way, is a murderer himself. That makes for a morally ambiguous story where one wonders whether the protagonist of the movie is any better than the antagonist. Genre: thriller/horror, year of release: 2009, director: Dario Argento, writers: Jim Agnew, Sean Keller and Dario Argento, plot: catch the murderer, themes: childhood trauma, alienation, madness, sexual perversion and moral. Now, childhood trauma has often been explored in Argento's movies but here it is more in focus and gives the narrative thrust. It is in focus since the movie is more driven by the main characters and their childhood traumas. What they are doing in the movie has a lot to do with what they experienced in their childhood. Avolfi's motivation for doing what he is doing is because he witnessed his mother getting killed. Volpe is haunted by his past and in his deteriorated state of mind he is obsessed with beauty and his lack thereof. Leading him to stalk, torture and ultimately murder beautiful women. I admit I cried a little when Volpe's story was shown, an unwanted child by his mother, picked and bullied by his peers and rejected by even the Catholic Church. Volpe is such a tragic character. It appears to me this movie is more or less a character study of two men with childhood traumas. Two murderers each on their side of the Law. It evokes the question: is the man who is a murderer hunting another murderer any better? What are their differences? Volpe's motivation appears to be compulsion and desire to feel better about himself and Avolfi, I don't know, redemption? But it can be argued Avolfi wants to make sure an episode like his mother doesn't happen again. But I think I am getting a little too heavy here, anyway the violence depicted in the movie is depraved, tasteless and downright grim. It seems to be a problem for most people who complains about this solid movie. I don't see any problem with that because, although I like the bravura and operatic violence in his early movies the depravity of the violence shows there is nothing beautiful about violence. Violence is an act of atrocity which can not be justified. Also, I like how 'Giallo' is more driven by characters rather than the plot. Yes the plot is the same. Yes many of the gimmicks he used in the 70's and 80's are still the same (example: people crashing through windows, ultra violence, swooping camera etc). No, it is not as artistic as 'Suspiria' or as dreamlike as 'Opera' but it is still a thought provoking story with sensibilities beyond the typical splatter and slasher films. Come on people, be more open minded. This is a good atmosphere thriller/horror with interesting characters and story. Or just keep hating this movie, so I can like it even more LOL