Films That Witness Madness

review

TENEBRAE

After taking a break from the giallo to make his first two gothic, supernatural masterpieces, SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, Argento returned to the genre that he helped create with TENEBRAE, one of those 'almost' films that treads gingerly along the line of good and bad. Mistakingly considered an Argento masterpiece by far too many, TENEBRAE is a predictable, by-the-numbers effort, a film that offers nothing new and does no one thing particularly well.

It's with this film that Argento begins to play like a stuck record. The plot is fairly simple: Peter Neal is an American writer visiting Rome to plug his latest book, a murder mystery titled 'Tenebrae'. A murderer is offing women using a similar M.O. as the killer in the novel, even stuffing pages of the book in one victim's mouth and leaving taunting letters at Neal's apartment. Could it be Anne, his assistant, his agent, Bulmer, or his screwed-up ex-wife, Jane, who has followed him to Rome? Rest assured, you'll figure it out well before the characters do. The film has one of the typical giallo twist endings, but don't worry, you'll see that coming, too.

The film does allow for a little discourse on not only the nature of violence in the media and it's possible corrupting power but also on the typical view of Argento as a misogynist. In a quick question and answer session, Neal is grilled by a young, female - as well as a lesbian and a feminist, naturally - reporter who asks the question I'm sure Argento is asked a lot: 'Why do you despise women so much?'. It's a shame Argento doesn't take much care in his response. Instead, he deflects. 'If someone is killed with a Smith & Wesson revolver, do you go and interview the president of Smith & Wesson?', Neal asks the police detective who has come to inform him of the first murder. And like that, Argento washes his hands of the topic. Later, during a pre-show sitdown with Christiano Berti, the host of a talk show, Neal doesn't get a single chance to explain either his motivations for writing his novel nor the meaning or significance of it's content. Is Argento inferring that he has no real answer or that his answer doesn't matter, that nothing he can say will change the public position on him? It's a golden opportunity that's unfortunately blown.

The characters are where this film is really lacking. There's simply no one interesting in the film. Our hero (played with a decent level of conviction by Anthony Franciosa) is perhaps one of the most lethargic amateur detectives in giallo history, waiting almost the entire first half before becoming actively involved. Anne, his love interest, played by a scarily pale Daria Nicolodi, is presented as little more than story filler and even John Saxon's hammy performance as Neal's agent, Bulmer, comes off as yawn-inducing and uninteresting. Several minor characters spice things up a bit but there's really no one to root for and, therefore, no one to help us become involved in the story. It might not be a boring story, but it is rather detached due to, yet again, Argento's inability to write and sustain characterization.

Argento can always be counted on to keep things visually interesting and it's in this regard that TENEBRAE falls the hardest. Aside from one of the most useless tracking shots in the history of cinema - a masturbatory, epic sweep of a building that does nothing for the film except allow Argento to exclaim "aren't I great!?" - the film is flat and unexciting. The murder set-pieces, Argento's bread and butter, are rather dull and nearly free of suspense, resembling slasher film outtakes. Aside from the ax murder of Jane, in which the ragged stump of her arm literally paints a wall red, the level of gore is low and the murders are all very similar, a razor in the first half, an ax in the second, with only two stabbings and a garroting to break up the monotony. The ending is an all-out bloodbath and contains two references to Argento's debut film, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE.

All-in-all, TENEBRAE is best classified as a time-waster. It's not great, it's not terrible. It's merely the work of a director trapped in a genre where, by 1982, everything that could be done, had been done. It shows Argento as a director unable to break free of his own style of construction, unable to generate any more suspense out of his old gags. Sadly, this is where Argento begins his slide from grace.

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