Inferno
(aka; Dario Argento's Inferno)
(1980)
review by Sal Skellington

Yeah…so…Dario Argento’s Inferno…
How do you review a film that defies description? Not very succinctly, I guess. Inferno, it has to be said, is a strange film even by Argento’s standards. On the surface, it carries all the Argento/giallo trademarks: nubile women, gloved killers, fetishized objects, sharp things and stylised visuals. Yet it has none of Tenebrae’s tight plot twists. Even the bizarre Suspiria hangs together better. Perhaps more than any other Argento movie, Inferno works as a series of (mostly) stunning set-pieces, strung together on the thinnest thread of plot.

If I may attempt to recreate this ‘plot’ in words: A woman (Rose, played by the delightfully named Irene Miracle), having read a book called ‘The Three Mothers’ by some crazy alchemist, decides to go down into the waterlogged cellar (as you do), in order to find one of the keys to the Mothers. These formidable ladies, by the way, are witches who control the world with the powers of darkness. In the cellar she finds the key, drops it in the water, and is scared when an icky corpse floats into her. Meanwhile, in Rome, her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) is in his musicology class being stared at by a pretty girl with a cat who has no relevance to the plot whatsoever. He forgets the letter his sister has written to him. His girlfriend (Eleonora Giorgi) tries to get the letter to him, but can’t resist reading it and ends up at the library stealing a copy of ‘The Three Mothers’. Here a person with ugly (gloved!) hands tries to boil her head in custard. And then it gets really incomprehensible.

One might hope that the acting or the dialogue would make up for this lack of plot. No such luck. The dialogue is simplistic and seems tacked on. The phrasing is monotone and strained. While this simplistic, monotone style can at times effectively expose the unnatural nature of some characters (‘He says it’s his heart’ – ‘Then he needs some heart medicine’), on a whole-film scale, it grates. Yet the physical acting, although not exceptional, is certainly satisfactory. I can only assume, then, that this is the unfortunate result of an Italian team producing a film in English.

So we have ascertained that one does not watch Inferno for the plot, the script or the acting. But is that really what attracts an audience to any giallo? While the total absence of storyline may be too much for some viewers, for the giallo/Argento fan there is much to be enjoyed here. Memorable images include the water-filled cellar room, a very effective shot of a body falling through a thin sheet and tearing it, and brightly-coloured scenery not unlike Suspiria, which gives the impression that the characters are living their lives (and dying their deaths) in a Mondrian painting. The cinematography is superb, although by no means realist. And gorehounds will not be disappointed, if they can sit through all the art to get to the killings. Choice deaths include burning, eaten by cats, eaten by rats and then randomly hacked up by a hot-dog vendor, a knife through the neck and, my personal favourite, a repeated guillotining (almost comic in its flamboyance) with a broken windowpane. Also notable is the music, always important in Argento’s films. A creepy mix of classical and synthesized music, it interacts brilliantly with the cinematography to create a nightmarish ambiance. Also watch out for the heavy-operatic theme tune, which seriously rocks.

What to say, then, about Inferno? In some ways, it delivers. In others, it does not. Watch it wearing your art-lover’s hat, not your analyst’s, and it’s an enjoyable film. Don’t try to understand it. Don’t try to work out why the characters do the things they do, beyond the simple ‘they’re evil’ (for the baddies) and ‘they’re stupid’ (for the goodies). Don’t attempt a Freudian analysis unless you want to end up having yourself committed for even watching the film. And above all, please, for the love of god, don’t try to write a review of it.

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