Review of Giallo? (2009) by Stephen M — 26 Nov 2009

Just as the term film noir was coined by the French to describe the cinematic equivalent of their black-jacketed hardboiled crime literature, the giallo, the Italian slasher movie, derives its name from the series of lurid, yellow paperbacks that directly inspired the films. By boldly naming his movie after the genre that has sustained him for the past forty years - the genre which he has done more than anybody else to popularise and of which he was once the undisputed master - you'd be forgiven for thinking that Dario Argento has something important to say here. A definitive statement? The culmination of a lifetime's work? Dare we even whisper it, a return to form?!?! Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. I won't give anything away because, quite frankly, this utterly dreadful film is short of surprises, even lame ones; let's just say I was reading too much into the origin of that title.

Aside from the increasingly unpleasant level of misogyny on display, Argento's recent work has been characterised by a preference for realistic backdrops. To say that Argento and realism go together like oil and water would be an understatement; realism is the salt to his slug! Even the best of Argento is too silly to bear close scrutiny but it gets by on bravura style coupled with a certain dreamlike logic; shine the harsh, natural light of day into his world and it just falls apart, becomes ridiculous. Argento is also one of those directors whose films rarely reach a satisfactory conclusion; they either end too abruptly or contain a final twist they'd have been better off without, Opera being a good example of the latter. As with Sleepless, the credits of Giallo begin to roll before the movie seems to have finished, as if the director reached an arbitrary point, got bored (what took him so long???) and called a wrap.

Anyway, I've now come to the conclusion that Dario Argento should be forcibly restrained from making any more movies. Oh, just in case you can't see through terrible acting and worse make-up, here's an anagram for your two year old child to solve: Byron Deidra.