Review of Berberian Sound Studio (2012) by Art S — 06 Jan 2013

It is probably best to view Peter Strickland's loving homage to the Italian giallo movies of the 1970s as an experimental film rather than a narrative one. Coming at it knowing that you will be exposed to a playful, wicked, masterful and extreme use of sound -- and that this is the central point -- will remove all the tension or frustration that might otherwise be experienced as the plot simply dissipates (as often happened in giallos themselves, come to think of it).

Toby Jones plays a meek sound man who arrives in Italy not knowing that he'll be working on a gruesome horror film (focused on the brutal interrogation by the Church of those accused of being witches, but also perhaps on the reincarnation of those witches in a modern girls academy -- a clear nod to Argento).

We never see the film -- we only hear it. Instead, we see the foley artists (slashing watermelons and destroying other vegetables) and the dubbing process -- everything is analog. Gradually our sound man goes rather insane and the sound and images of the film follow suit.

I saw this on the big screen with the audio cranked -- probably the only thing better than headphones. The soundtrack is by Brit band Broadcast, whose singer sadly died from pneumonia in the middle of the project, and it fits right into the genre-love.