Berberian Sound Studio

I'm a big fan of films where impressionable protagonists enter a world of images and fictions. The challenge is how to model madness, by what degrees to confuse and clarify. DePalma could do this type of film, fooling with layered placement and identity of the eye—it'd be as cool as this and obvious in its main thrust about madness, but probably not as ambient. Lynch could in a more powerful way.

The story is that a shy sound-man goes to work on an Italian exploitation movie, this is to establish him as a creative person who will have to imagine things, and to establish the things he's going to imagine as of some darkness. He is an introvert, so we can have this conflation of inner and outer sensitivity to phenomena. Funny: shy is here equated with unattractive appearance in the main actor.

The film is entirely contained on a soundstage and around the studio where the soundtrack is being prepared. The actual horror movie is never seen (except for the opening credits which serve as the credits to our film), always inferred from what we see of the sound-carpet being fitted, the screams and slashing sounds, and this is a crucial point: the horror movie never quite materializes, so there's widespread negativity in reviews.

Oh, we get obvious hallucination in the latter stages that I could do without, linked to movie screens as borders of reality — it clarifies too much. But there's something else I liked, simple and inventive.

All sorts of sound effects are constructed over the course of the film before our eyes, from ordinary means: melons are slashed, pumpkins are splattered, broth is boiling. The first time we see the effect being recorded, and then an off-screen voice announces what it is supposed to be the sound of, and it's done a second time. It's fun to see on a fundamental level as exposing the kind of unceremonious but inventive technical work that takes place behind cinematic curtains of illusion.

But more marvelous is exemplifying the mechanism of that illusion that creates the imagined horror story in our mind — the second time the sound becomes the mental image just described to us. By making it so immediate, it's a powerful exhibit, observable in your own self, of the mind acquiring illusory images — the images become what the off- screen voice announces. Wickedly clever! Because it puts us in the protagonist's shoes, by introducing a disruptive level of imagination.

So I think you must see this at one point. Based on his previous film and now this, I have this filmmaker on my short list of talent that I expect he has it in him to be a leading voice a decade from now.

I recall watching this in the cinema and enjoying it but a re-watch seemed to catch me unawares. Maybe it was the mood I was in but this time instead of being an interesting backroom take on my beloved gallo films it seemed a much more sinister affair. How could I not have noticed the first time how unpleasant it is, how nasty everyone seems to be and how alienating it all is? A powerful film, set almost exclusively in a sound studio, purportedly in Italy, though actually the nearby Three Mills Island set up. Almost everything I remember finding intriguing, this time took on a much more malevolent tone. The screaming ladies who can't get the right scream, the smashing of the vegetables, the switching between languages, the unfriendly 'friendly' intimacies, and the undertones of there being something rotten (apart from the decaying vegetables) within Italian society, at the time. A unique film but an uncomfortable watch.

The story on the other hand is confusing to say the least. But that is meant to be experienced like that. The question is if you are willing to enjoy the ride. You could also say it's a bit of style over content, though I'm sure the director must have a plan in mind and could explain it all to you.

The cast is great, the pace of the story on the other hand is really slow. Another factor that might make this unbearable to watch for some people. It's definitely a great look behind the scenes of sound making, whatever you think of the movie. Another great thing is that the movie can be watched a couple of times, so you could discover new little things in it.

First and foremost it has to be recognised that the design and execution of the sound sequences in this film are outstanding. It's almost worth ninety minutes of your time just to listen to this film, the sound design is so good. It's also pretty satisfying if you have a fetish for old sound equipment – all those reel-to-reel tape decks and retro-futuristic signal generators and so on. From that point of view and from the sound perspective this film was absolutely up my street. Toby Jones as the lead could not be faulted and I would happily watch anything with him in it.

So what was wrong with it? Well it was sub-Lynchian without ever coming near to the pleasures and terrors of an actual David Lynch film. You can almost hear the director straining to hit the tone of a Lynch film and falling badly short every time. The script was at times very amusing but mostly it was just plain trivial or superficial. The story was incomprehensible, again not in a Lynch fashion where the very incomprehensibility adds to the mystery but in the fashion of someone striving for portentous but merely achieving pretentious.

It's worth seeing/hearing for the fantastic design but as a film it fails to engage and it fails to be half as clever as it thinks it is.

This film is a pleasant homage to Italian giallo and to the under-recognized art of sound editing. A bit like Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani's "Amer" did, but in a more conventional, more "easy watching" way.

It begins as an amusing comedy with a cast of characters gently mocking the 70's Italian machismo. The very exciting central concept of the film is to deal with graphical horror without showing any real violence on the screen. This counter-fashion idea clearly marks its distance from the recent escalation in the graphic horror genre cinema, which I find honorable.

The imagination of the spectator is highly put to use compared to these days' standards. A truly outstanding atmosphere is obtained thanks to a really terrific sound editing. The atmosphere moves from light fun to disturbing fantasy with elegance.

But near the end, the story lost me. I eventually didn't understand where the film wanted take me. For that disappointing feeling, I don't rate it very high, but this movie is definitely a good piece of artwork and is more interesting than most of what is to be seen nowadays.