Inferno

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Inferno

October 8th 2008 00:27

“I do not know what price I shall have to pay for breaking what we alchemists call Silentium, the life experiences of our colleagues should warn us not to upset laymen by imposing our knowledge upon them.” --- E. Varelli (The Three Mothers)

Not that the plot is hugely important in Inferno (1980), Dario Argento’s unhinged second part to his witchcraft trilogy, "The Three Mothers". Inferno operates more like a series of set-pieces that glide into each other. The movie is drenched in atmosphere, soaked in mood, and saturated in colour. Inferno is Argento’s most expressionist film.

The New York home of the Mother of Darkness

The mythology of the three Mothers - Our Ladies of Sorrow – plays out like a lurid and nightmarish fairy tale. As there are three Graces, who dress a person’s life with beauty, there are three Furies, who visit with retribution called from the other side of the grave, and there are three Muses, who fit the harp, the trumpet, and the lute.

Our Ladies of Sorrow are actually sisters; powerful and diabolical witches. Suspiria (1977) dealt with the eldest known as Mater Suspiriorum (Mother of Sighs) who dwelled in Freiburg, Germany. Inferno deals with the youngest known as Mater Tenebrarum (Mother of Darkness) who lives in New York City. The third and prettiest sister is known as Mater Lachrymarum (Mother of Tears) and she resides in Rome (more on her tomorrow).

Irene Miracle as Rose

Rose (Irene Miracle), a pretty young poet living in New York City has discovered an ancient book called Three Mothers written by an architect called Varelli. It describes the existence of three demonic sisters who rule the world with sorrow. Varelli had designed them each a home. Rose believes she lives in one of the buildings, the home of Mater Tenebrarum.

Leigh McCloskey as Mark

Rose writes a letter to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey), a music student in Rome, explaining her suspicion. While in class Mark attempts to read the letter but is distracted by the intense gaze of a female student (Ania Pieroni) stroking a pussycat, her dark exotic eyes almost burning a hole through Mark. Little does Mark know that the student is Mater Lachrymarum in disguise.

Ania Pieroni as Mater Lachrymarum

Mark is bewildered by the presence of the music student and her eerie beauty. He leaves the letter behind, but it is retrieved by his colleague Sara (Eleonara Giorgi) who reads the letter and is freaked out. She immediately goes to the library to find a copy of Varelli’s book, but eventually, along with her neighbour (Gabriele Lavia) falls foul of Darkness.

Eleonara Giorgi as Sara

Mark contacts Rose and makes plans to visit. Further tragic events unfold. Mark arrives in NYC and meets with several of Rose’s apartment building tenants, but there is more confusion than clarity to the mysterious events that are unfolding around him.

Boil, boil, toil and trouble

Eventually, after further ills, Mark uses clues from Rose’s letter and uncovers crawlspaces under the buildings floorboards. He finds a series of secret suites where he discovers an old man. It turns out the man is Varelli himself who exclaims “Even now you are being watched.” Mark is confronted by Varelli’s nurse (Vernonica Lazar).

Alidi Valli as the caretaker and Veronica Lazar as the nurse

Inferno is flawed, but then most of Argento’s films are like rough-cut diamonds. But these are blood diamonds that glitter in the night like the gleam of a supernatural predator’s eyes peering through the darkness from other side of midnight. Argento’s movies may suffer from less-than-coherent (conventional) storytelling, but – and especially in the cases of Suspiria and Inferno – his visual narrative reigns supreme in capturing pure cinema, expressionism almost to the point of abstraction: a resonant, lingering mélange of sight and sound.

Argento's wife Daria Nicolodi as Elise

Inferno features a brilliant use of production design, art direction, and cinematography. Like Suspiria the lighting relies almost exclusively on primary colours: red, blue and yellow. Dialogue is kept to a minimum, and the music by 70s prog-rock keyboard whiz Keith Emerson delivers an unnerving intensity (although not nearly as garish or frightening as Goblin's score for Suspiria). Suspiria might be considered the scariest of Argento’s movies by the True Believers, but Inferno is arguably the most striking; floating with the ethereal beauty of a strange and darkly wondrous dream.

Mark in the witches' lair; one of the movie's many cult images

The narrative is less important than the tone and textures of the film; the creeping, insidious mood of a nightmare where logic is thrown to shrieking cats (who’ll tear you to shreds). There are numerous set-pieces that stand-out in Inferno; one when Sara goes into the basement of the library and encounters something nasty amidst the fiery, bubbling cauldrons, and another more famous scene when Rose attempts to retrieve her keys which fall through a large hole into a deeply flooded room down in the darkened cellar of her apartment building … the same building which is home to the Mother of Darkness.

Hell hath no fury ... like a witch!

No one makes movies like Dario Argento. While Inferno does have its absurd moments (and a dreadful male lead), there is too much great stuff to let those little bits get in the way. I’d kill to see this movie on the big screen, instead I indulge at regular intervals with my U.S. Anchor Bay DVD release (after years of only being able to view a full-frame pan and scan version on an old "video nasty" VHS. Yet curiously I’m holding onto my vintage VHS copy with its striking and creepy cover, perhaps out of some kind of superstitious awe).

Although this doesn't do the film justice here is a Spanish trailer (that uses the English dialogue):

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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2 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Cibbuano

October 8th 2008 02:30

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sweet... I really enjoyed Argento's style and use of colours in "Suspiria"... and I'm thrilled at the idea of a trilogy based around three evil sisters. I'd watch them all!

Comment by Damo

October 8th 2008 08:28

The knife through the neck was a blast.

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