By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.9 cats
Director: Peter Strickland
Starring: Cosimo Fusco | Layla Amir | Susanna Cappellaro | Toby Jones | Tonia Sotiropoulou
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2013
Running time: 92
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1833844
Jason says: “BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO brought a film called AMER to mind, even though the two are spectacularly different in the way they pay tribute to Italian giallo movies. What they have in common is a deep affection for the genre, a remarkable attention to detail, and an incredible ability to create atmosphere from sound and a barely suggested plot. This movie just takes those qualities into post-production.
“Post-production on a film called THE EQUESTRIAN VORTEX, to be specific. Gilderoy (Toby Jones), an English audio engineer, has been hired to record and mix the movie’s soundtrack, but he didn’t quite know what he was getting into – aside from the bloody, violent content of the script taking him by surprise, he’s a quiet Englishman surrounded by brash Italians; he doesn’t speak the local language; and he’s having a hard time finding someone to reimburse him for his airfare. Producer Francesco (Cosimo Fusco) switches from ingratiating to domineering at the drop of a hat, and the director who specifically requested him is mostly absent and eccentric when he is around. The closest thing he finds to a friend is Silvia (Fatma Mohamed), one of the actresses dubbing the film, though some of the other men on set claim she’s trouble.
“If I were producing next year’s Academy Awards, I’d look into using clips from this movie to illustrate just what is meant by Sound Editing and Sound Mixing; a fair amount of time is spent on showing how Gilderoy and his colleagues go about their work, whether it be smashing vegetables to approximate the sounds of the human body being abused, carefully raising and lowering sound levels to just so, and watching women scream their hearts out while standing in a booth with nothing to react to. It’s great fun to watch for those who like to see how things work and how movies are made, but the way writer/director Peter Strickland uses this environment to tell the story is kind of brilliant. Certainly, it’s dark and claustrophobic and kind of run-down; that’s kind of a given. But it’s Gilderoy that grabs the attention; Jones and Strickland let us get to know the man by how he goes about his work, usually separated from the girl he may fancy by glass. The machines he uses are analog, mechanical things, an extension of his actions in the way that digital interfaces can only approximate, and the instinctive way he is able to manipulate them stands in stark contrast to how nervous he is in his interaction with the other people.
“Of course, it’s not just the situations that he’s in that make Jones’s performance so outstanding. The way he speaks and especially his body language is always note-perfect; he does what seems like a thousand variations on discomfort, and always the exact best one for the moment. Even more, he makes sure there’s something a little sinister to Gilderoy as he does start to fit in, as though loosening up has cost him a piece of his soul. It’s dominating for being such a quiet, internal bit of acting; the rest of the cast must be measured on how they complement him. They do so well enough, Fatma Mohamed in particular a nice thing going where she’s able to make Silvia centered even if she is potentially passionate and under-appreciated, and Cosimo Fusco does the thing where Francesco goes from amusingly insincere to just mean in a second quite well indeed.
“The film is thick with atmosphere, although it may not always seem so. The thing Strickland does that’s most risky – though it pays off well – is to never show The Equestrian Vortex to the audience. Well, that’s not entirely true; he does show the animated opening titles to get the brain associating with the right kind of movie. After that, the characters are all reacting to something being screened that we can’t see, and the filmmakers work that well; the dialog and what plot can be pieced together is just over-the-top enough to draw a laugh, but describes things that we can believe make Gilderoy uneasy. Similarly, even though we can see Gilderoy and the rest of the group creating sound effects, they can still register as a decapitation rather a head of lettuce being cut in half when we’re looking elsewhere. It taps into how our imagination isn’t necessarily rational. So does the last act; we get further and further into Gilderoy’s head and while initially the surrealism is obviously unreal, things seem to get closer and closer to life without becoming any less strange.
“As a result, the dark, moody BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO can certainly feel like the sort of horror movie Gilderoy is working on without having to take on its surface characteristics. After all, those movies stick in their head as much for how they make one feel as the gallons of fake blood used, and while this one may not have a lot of red, it makes us feel wrong in all the right ways. 4.75 cats
“Seen 28 April 2013 in Somerville Theatre #4 (Independent Film Festival Boston After Dark, digital)”
Thom says: “A sound engineer (Gilderoy) from England travels to Italy to work on a horror film by an egomaniacal Italian master. He slowly starts to unravel as horrific dreams & images befall him. Problem, there’s nothing even remotely scary in the entire proceedings, just peculiar and bizarre. I adore Toby Jones but he doesn’t have anything to work with here. The film is claustrophobic and not only because it takes place almost entirely in a studio. 1.5 cats
“Director Strickland available for Q&A.”
Toni says: “Excellent film! This is in some theaters still and if you can’t catch it on Amazon streaming still…
“Great point about clips from this film for examples of Sound Editing and Mixing, Jay :).
“This is what I expect HOLY MOTORS to be…this is my kind of midnight movie…my kind of absurd psychological thriller…
“Toby Jones deserves a lead Chlotrudis nomination for this :)!”
I like the way Strickland makes creepy, disturbing films without making them horrific. In this, his second featured and the one that first started getting him some notice, Strickland, like Eggers, follow a man’s descent toward madness. In this case, Toby Jones plays Gilderoy, a British sound designer who is hired by an eccentric, egotistical Italian horror film director, to create the sound effects for his latest film about witches. While Gildero goes about smashes melons to simulate the sound of decapitations or the like, he also realizes he’s getting the runaround from the assistant director, keeping him from getting paid, alternatively treating him like a hired grunt then a respected film collaborator. The series of women coming through the studio to record the screams and other overdubs are mocked and sexually harassed and Gilderoy starts to become paranoid of life imitating art. An abrupt shift in his character about 3/4 of the way through puts a different spin on the film, but in the end I actually thought a few more scares, might have moved this film along and made it a little more interesting. While I have no quibble Toby Jones Chlotrudis nomination for Best Actor, nor for the film’s nod for Production Design, the film overall left me a little, meh. 2 1/2 cats