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| My apologies for this rather lengthy review of Dario Argento's Ti Piace Hithcock. I didn't have time to do a short one.
Tonight was a night of surprises. The first one being Dario Argento himself, who was invited up on stage before the screening, only to reveal himself as being one happy, joyous clown (and a very physical joker at that - lots of limb-waiving, a funny dance at first and a silly walk later on). This wasn't exactly the man I was expecting, the serious Dario Argento I know from the extras on my DVD's. Yet, I couldn't have wished for a better introduction to Ti Piace Hitchcock. Even though he was clearly overcome with joy, Argento played the audience like a real professional, with him pushing all the right buttons, us eating it up and laughing at his little stage show. Ti Piace Hitchcock itself is a surprising movie too, bearing many parallells with the Dario Argento I saw tonight. It is a thriller that is played seriously, with only sparse attempts at any humour, but there is a certain lightness and playfulness about the film that separates it from Argento's other work. This shift towards a more playful attitude is remarkable and Argento himself called it an experiment. Elio Germano's character for instance, named Giulio, doesn't take beating after beating like Betty in Opera or Anna Manni in The Stendhal Syndrome. Instead he often leaves the impression that he's rather enjoying this whole thriller plot that is evolving around him. Germano's performance is really good to boot. Beforehand I was a bit worried as Ti Piace Hitchcock doesn't contain a foreign actor, the caliber of David Hemmings or Jessica Harper, on whose shoulders any lesser Italian actor could climb upon. The joyful truth is, this movie is carried by Spanish and Italian youngsters and they do a very good job. Don't think that, with this shift in attitude for Argento and him relying on hip youngsters, our favourite director has entered the realm of the vapid. No, this might not be German expressionism, but it sure likes to make reference to it! Ti Piace Hitchcock is a labour of love, an ode to the cinema that moves Argento, resulting in a movie that in turn moved me. Each Argento movie has a handful of moments that us fans like to praise ad infinitum. Scenes where music and visuals combine into something that stuns us. Most often though, these are scenes of violence, like the train murder in Sleepless or the attack on the house of lesbos in Tenebre. In Ti Piace Hitchcock, if you asked me what my favourites parts are, my answer would be the two voyeur scenes where Guilo has the opportunity to observe a little striptease. Yes, the nudity in these sequences is as explicit as it gets, but there is nothing sleazy or exploitative about them - this is cinema! Graceful, elegant, executed with visual style and amazing music by Pino Donaggio, these scenes - please pardon me this expression - are more likely to warm your heart than your crotch. Some Argento titles, even favourites like Phenomena or Inferno, have a certain clumsiness about them at times. Inferno has dead spots in it, Phenomena has its messy plot that suffers from an abundance of ideas. Ti Piace Hitchcock, in comparison, is very tightly scripted with great pacing. I think this is surprising, considering that it is a construct for Argento to go nuts in with odes to the cinema that he loves. And to make things complete plot-wise, there are many suspense sequences and they are well-executed, not to mention effective. Continuing with the good news, Pino Donaggio delivered a great musical score. It consists of very diverse tunes, varying from pounding to something a bit more playful, although never failing to be elegant, or to be any less than a perfect match with what is happening on screen. Venturing into the first bit of bad news (in the visual department of all things), it should be said that Ti Piace Hitchcock is indeed a television movie. The opening prologue, shot in some woods in broad daylight, quite frankly shocked me because of how it looked. Argento might have tried to make the best out of that prologue through nice editing and camera angles, this doesn't hide the fact that Ti Piace wasn't shot on trusty film or a worthy substitute. During the entire movie there are many bouts of ugliness like the prologue, specifically when there are interiors or extras with bright yellow shirts to be dealt with. But that being said, bouts of visual beauty are also truly abundant. There are moments where Argento's gothic sensibilities come through, where the city of Turin is the true star, where colours are pretty and the camera angles are neat. In the end, I even prefer Ti Piace Hitchcock's energetic and creative cinematography over the mostly dull photography work that Sleepless suffers from, even if the former falls prey to a typical television look at many occasions. To conclude I'll give you one word of warning, and one of hope. In the light of other movies I saw at the festival in Brussels and in the light of Argento's past work, Ti Piace Hithcock is a fairly trivial exercise. A snack in between meals, a lightweight movie to watch on a warm summer night. In the end though, it is easy to forgive a television movie this sin. Especially one that, by the craftsmanship and energy with which it was made, bodes very well for the future |
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| "do you like Hitchcock?" a été présenté en avant-première Samedi au festival du film fantastique de Bruxelles |
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