A cut above

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This article was published 20/08/2015 (4031 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sex and violence are the coins of the realm in pop cinema around the world.

But nowhere else is the sex so lurid and the violence so baroque as it is in Italy’s giallo genre.

The word translates as “yellow,” taking its name from the yellow covers of cheap pulp mystery novels popular in postwar Italy. But the films created under the giallo banner represent a whole spectrum of quality, from the high art of Dario Argento (Deep Red) and Mario Bava (Black Sabbath) to the vicious exploitation films of Lucio Fulci (The New York Ripper) and, alas, later Dario Argento (Giallo, Mother of Tears).

It takes some kind of obsessive personality to want to revive the giallo film, which peaked in popularity in the 1970s and ’80s. Fortunately, there are five such individuals in the Winnipeg-based film collective Astron-6, who launch their scathingly funny giallo pastiche The Editor at Cinematheque Aug. 20. The film was co-directed by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy, written by Brooks, Kennedy and Conor Sweeney (all three of whom also star in the film) with additional contributions in music and special effects by Astron’s Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski.

Brooks plays Rey Ciso, a much-abused film editor trapped on the bottom rung of the Italian exploitation film industry. When the studio is the scene of a series of grisly murders, Rey is the prime suspect in the eyes of hostile police detective Porfiry (Kennedy), who clearly has some screws loose himself. The hapless editor’s efforts to prove his innocence only mires him deeper in violence rendered, in true giallo tradition, in a hyper-elaborate fashion that flirts with surrealism.

Coming on the heels of a pair of Astron’s exploitation parodies, Father’s Day and Manborg, The Editor emerges as their most accomplished feature. It looks great, and it uncannily replicates the bizarre, dream-like quality of the classics in the genre. The fact that it comes off as well as it does on a meagre budget is a testament to Astron’s creativity, low-budget ingenuity and tireless work ethic. (It took a whole year to make.)

 

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The Editor even boasts a few notable exploitation stars in the cast, including Udo Kier (Suspiria), Laurence R. Harvey (The Human Centipede 2) and Paz de la Huerta (Nurse 3D).

“This film had more than 10 times the budget of our last film, Father’s Day, which cost $10,000,” says Brooks. “So we could afford a couple of name actors this time around.”

As with their previous features, the inspiration for the film came from, collectively, youth misspent in the genre boondocks of neighbourhood video stores and online marketplaces.

“When I was in art school, my girlfriend’s little brother was a big Italian genre-film fanatic,” says Brooks. “He lent me the first Fulci and Argento movies I’d ever seen.”

“The first giallo I watched was (Mario Bava’s) Bay of Blood, a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve,” says Kennedy. “I ordered it on Amazon strictly because I was told that Friday the 13th Part 2 stole murder sequences from it, and indeed it did. After that, Conor introduced me to Suspiria and I fell in love with it.”

Strictly speaking, Dario Argento’s 1977 classic Suspiria is more of a supernatural horror film than a proper giallo. But because genre master Argento brought his stylistic A-game to a story of a young woman battling a coven of witches, it earns honorary giallo status, and its influence can’t be overstated. Sweeney says the film was his “gateway drug” to the genre.

“At that point, I didn’t know that there was an entire genre of these movies, so it felt like I’d found a bizarre, totally unique little alien thing,” Sweeney says.

Once the filmmakers were more steeped in the genre, they saw possibilities in a project that could simultaneously celebrate the giallo film while mercilessly sending it up.

“We’ve taken heat from a couple of giallo purists for mocking the genre,” Sweeney says. “But it’s so naive to say that the genre is without its share of huge faults and insulting, idiotic moments.

“That’s part of what make gialli so odd and interesting,” he says. “They’re consistently convoluted, unintentionally funny, misogynistic and boring for long stretches, while also being beautiful, scary, surreal and engrossing.”

Brooks cops to a love-hate relationship with the films.

“I love the style-as-substance philosophy, the surreal lighting, zooms, mysterious POV (point-of-view) shots, fetishistic murders and constant dream logic,” he says. “But many of them are filled with huge stretches of incredibly boring exposition.”

Since the genre tends to wallow in scenes of elaborate, sadistic violence against women, the misogyny attached to the genre made it especially deserving of a satiric assault, Kennedy says.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-misogynist giallo film to date,” Kennedy says. “While we don’t share that sensibility, we did feel that it needed to be acknowledged, and mocked.

“The way the women are treated in those films is so foreign to today’s audiences that it’s easily translated to comedy.”

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca