The Sitges Festival is a stop for all kinds of proposals related to fantasy and horror, among which there is always a place for authors with a great personality. It is curious that two names of the eurohorror of two generations have coincided on the same day, where the legend of the giallo Dario Argento has returned to his favorite genre while his student Peter Strickland, who paid great homage to the genre at ‘Berberian Sound Studio’, presented ‘Gourmet Flux’.
Dark crystals in the glasses close up of Argento
‘Occhiali Neri’ (Dark Glasses) is the return of Dario Argento, the godfather of the Italian giallo, to mystery and murder, the director’s first film since the ‘Dracula 3D’ disaster of 2012. Although it is more digestible than that one, and has some moments of extravagant style, they are no more than superficial embellishments in a screeching drama with some blood. The time seemed right to see a fit Argento again.after Luca Guadagnino’s new version of his classic ‘Suspiria’ and his own acting role in Gaspar Noé’s ‘Vortex’.
But though a return of a master it’s always good news, there is quite a lack of imagination and strength in the result. And it’s a shame, because its first few minutes hold promise and soon fizzle out into a routine crime mystery in which sex workers are being murdered by a mysterious figure known for driving a pickup truck, and the woman in the opening sequence, a high-end prostitute named Diana who has been wearing sunglasses since the eclipse.
Soon, she’ll have to wear them permanently, as a chase results in a car accident that leaves her blind and leaves a 7-year-old Chinese boy in her care. Part of the first hour of ‘Dark Glasses’ is limited to witnessing how Diana learns to cope with her condition and is assigned the help of the educator Rita, a restrained Asia Argento and a guide dog named Nerea. Between the obvious sexualization of Ilenia Pastorelli, with microskirts and lingerie in many scenes, and the confusing tone, It seems that we are facing a spicy tabletop movie.
Except for the chase and car scenes, or a dog reminiscent of that of another famous blind man in his filmography, the argentophiles have nothing to cling to until a ridiculous and bloody climax that more reminiscent of his ‘Giallo’ (2012) than his good giallos. However, all is not lost and the rock/electronic score by Arnaud Rebotini offers a symphony in the best tradition of Italian cinema, full of synthesizers, modern rhythmic bases, gothic organs and the entire collection of effects that duly recall Goblin. and they help the pastiche not to be entirely a disappointment.
The Banquet of Sounds by Peter Strickland
British filmmaker Peter Strickland is specializing in a cinema dedicated to the senses in which his transversal ideas stand out to present his premises. In ‘The Duke of Burgundy’ he mixed lepidoptera, lesbians and sado, with some attention to perfume. His horror movie ‘In Fabric’ featured a killer dress and paid attention to color and fabric processes, and in ‘Flux Gourmet’ there is a sonic catering collective at an elite institute directed by Jan Stevens, who returns to the theme of frequencies that he touched on in ‘BSE’.
The collective is made up of Elle (Fatma Mohamed), Billy (Asa Butterfield) and Lamina (Ariane Labed), who perform performances with food sounds. For example, Elle is naked and covered in blood, rolling on the floor while kitchen noises are played along with monotonous music, or a man aroused by a woman using the bathroom, while Elle smears her body with food that appears to be stool. There are rants about toxicity and the current culinary hysteriadysfunctional food ideology, and a discussion of artists’ egos.
There are acts of artistic terrorism and incomprehensible standards, to one of the strangest films of the festival. It’s not scary, at times it’s disgusting, but not so much, and when the slow-cooked catharsis arrives, the road has been so exhausting that it doesn’t matter too much, unless the world of ASMR fascinates you. But otherwise it’s as boring and tedious an experiment as watching two hours of people making sounds on youtube, only coded with an irritating humor that makes you imagine how students with authorial aspirations make scatological jokes.
There is a certain satire to the current world of cooking reality shows, and even some interesting performance, with a surreal touch that indicates that Strickland knows, and probably loves, ‘Sweet Movie‘ (1974), but this time the ensemble is arrhythmic, much less visually careful at the lens level, with a repetition of its previous themes without the tonal magic of those, which leave the impression of a self-indulgent whim without as much interest as its original premise promiseswhich we hope is just a setback in a unique career whose lesser-known samples, such as his account in ‘The Field Guide to Evil’ (2018), deserve much more attention than this ‘Flux Gourmet’