Berberian Sound Studio

There's something almost Lynchian about Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio. First of all, with a recurring image of Silenzio, flashing on the sign outside of the studio, invoking (for myself at least) the penultimate shot of Mulholland Drive. The part of the film industry on record here is the stuff of both Lynch's Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive, and the central character, Toby Jones as Gilderoy, falls so deeply into his work, that it instantly recalls Laura Dern's character in Inland Empire.

But enough comparing this unique director to another, let it stand on its own, and stand it does. Jones's Gilderoy comes, presumably to Italy, to work on sound for a classic auteur-minded director. Gilderoy is an expert in sound, but has never worked on a horror film before, though the director claims it's far from horror (starting to sound like Lynch yet?). Still, Gilderoy brings his obsession to the film, and executes with extraordinary precision, most of the time, while also obsessing over receiving reimbursement for his travel expenses.

The meta-film is certainly horror, but what about the exterior. There are a couple of horror-like scenes in the film, but if it is to be called horror, it's in a much different way. The film slowly boils, gaining momentum with its mysterious atmosphere, aided with its brilliant use of sound and music. There's an unrest similar to Kubrick's The Shining that surrounds the film, and there's no foreshadowing like there is present in the Kubrick, just the ongoing sense of danger (hmm, kinda like Inland Empire). The climax is not a traditional climax, but a reworking à la Mulholland Drive (I just can't avoid these references). What results is a truly mesmerizing film, if not so unique.

Now, I said the use of sound s brilliant, but really, what more could be expected of a film about a sound studio? The film's inner sound creation for the meta-film almost always works with the film itself, as well as (we can assume) the meta-film. At times, there's music in the film, is it which film is it coming from? The answer, must always be the exterior film (Berberian Sound Studio itself, man this is weird to write about!), but the music is also within the other film, or found in the environment of the room, it's never disjointed from the film, it always has a source.

Sometimes, though, it feels as though the music is coming directly and exclusively to us, not from something within the film. This is never true, as far as the film will admit, but this line blurring is exactly what the film is going for. It's a film about art encapsulating your world, about becoming so immersed that maybe we forget who we are, if even for a minute. Maybe that's what happened in Berberian Sound Studio, for just a few moments, like Gilderoy, I entered the film before me.

Rating: 4.25/5

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Mubi

Yeah, I just watched this last week - pretty good film, one of the best of 2012. I read somewhere that Strickland cited Greenaway and Tscherkassky as his influence on the film. An odd combo but I can see it.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Not read this review because I finally have a copy of this to watch. YAY! I'll come back and comment once I've seen it.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.