INFERNO
Italy, 1980, 107 minutes, Colour.
Leigh Mc Closkey, Irene Miracle, Sacha Pitoeff, Alida Valli, Feodor Chaliapin Jr, James Fleetwood.
Directed by Dario Argento.
Inferno is one of many horror films made by the master of Italian horror, Dario Argento. (His daughter Asia Argento has continued in this vein in some of her films though she has become an international actress. She appeared in a number of her father’s early films.)
This film is something of a sequel to Suspiria. It opens in New York with a young woman reading a book and discovering three evil mothers who weave their spells of witchcraft and evil and have to be combated. She contacts her brother studying music in Rome and enlists his help.
The film has a slight plot but is very strong in horror and tense atmosphere.
1. The reputation of Dario Argento during the 70's? A stylish maker of horror thrillers? The focus on violence, gore, knife-wielding? An enclosed world of garish colours? His interest in fear, shock, suspense? The natural? The occult? An interesting example of his baroque work?
2. The Italian horror styles? The Italian perspective ? international touch, characters, situations, the European background compared with the American?
3. The technical aspects of the horror film: the particular use of garish colours, lightings, shadows? The particular styles of decor: New York, Rome? The blend of reality, fantasy? Contrived atmosphere? The emphasis on the interiors? The importance of the special effects And their horror, speed? The editing for shock and pace? The elaborate musical score and its electronic effects from the director himself? The operatic aspects of Italian films, horror, characterisation and melodramatic situations? Impact on Italian audiences,
international audiences?
4. The emphasis on shocks and their ugliness, nightmare and the effect on the audience of participating and waking from a nightmare?
5. The analogies with opera and Italian melodrama? The fact that Mark was studying music and opera? the quotations from the operas? The world of opera and melodrama, like the world of this film, an enclosed world of its own?
6. How plausible was the plot? How credible the occult background? Audience believing in this material? The explanation of the book, the explanation of the three mothers? The background of alchemy? The houses and their sinister spirits? Architecture and appearances? The presence of evil? How did the film use the occult, old mythologies, audience curiosity (and the curiosities of its characters?), the mysteries and myths of death?
7. The initial focus on Rose: her character, her being scared, the discovery of the book, the clues? The encounters with Kazanian? The underwater searching in the house? The fear of drowning? The audience response to this upside down and mysterious underwater world? The letter to Mark? Her wandering, the storm, her death?
8. The transition to Sarah the music student, the cab, the encounter with Carlo, his death, the ugliness of her death?
9. Elisa: her character, her visit, her death?
10. Death and its omnipresence, death watching the characters? The medieval background of death as presented in the film? The gradual revelation of death and its control? The avenging spirit of death?
11. Mark as hero - how interesting, attractive? (wooden style!), relationship with Sarah and friendship? Love for his sister? The encounter with Elisa and the mystery? His search of the house? Why was he not killed? Wake? The clues? The fire and the final confrontation? His escape?
12. The character of Kazanian, his selling the books, his knowledge of the occult? His knowledge of the house and the cellar? His cats? His walk in the park, his being killed by the rats ? and the ugly visuals?
13. The significance of the maid and her husband? Their place in the house, greed, knowledge? The vivid ugliness of their deaths?
14. The architect, the killing and dying? His being in the wheelchair. his knowledge, the ironic technological nature of his death? The significance of his evil power?
15. The film as an exercise in horror atmospherics, its creating a world of its own, exploiting shocks and ugliness, knives and blood, rats and cats? The value for an audience of being immersed in this world, even as nightmare? The importance of the weirdness of the exercise in comparison with the plausibility of the plot?
16. A Grand Guignol exploration and exploitation of evil, possessing houses, the visualizing and mystery of death?
