Dir. Dario ArgentoColour, 93 mins.
Distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment
Okay, I'll admit it. I really love Dario Argento. That's why, unfortunately, I'd been avoiding his newer movies as much as humanly possible--save for The Third Mother--for fear that they'd be disappointing and lackluster.
Happily, it turns out Do You Like Hitchcock? is not a bad film.
It's not a great film, either, mind you. What you end up with is a reasonably tense and well-written murder mystery flick. The problem is it's just not what we've come to love and expect from Mr Argento. You never feel as if the protagonist is stuck in a nightmare--in fact, he's a pretty unsympathetic character in general, so it's hard to feel anything for him at all.
The film starts out with our protagonist, Giulio, as a child, and making his way through the woods on a bike. Upon spying a cloaked woman on the path ahead of him, he decides to follow her to a decrepit cabin, where he witnesses her ritually slaughtering a chicken with another woman. Giulio is so shocked by the violence that he blows his cover, falling from his perch by the window he was peering in through, and the two women give chase to him. Nothing really comes of this scene except for the occasional flashback later on in the film, and a sort of parallel to Giulio's later life.
Cut to the present, and unsurprisingly, Giulio is still a peeping tom. He's not following witches around anymore, however, just spying on his neighbour across the street with binoculars. This sultry beauty, Sasha, he finds, is constantly fighting with her abusive mother. He runs into her on the street at several points, mainly in the video shop they both frequent (Giulio is a film student studying German Expressionism, and Sasha is a self-professed Hitchcock nut). When Sasha begins showing a romantic interest in Federica, a mysterious blonde, it's not long before Sasha's mother is brutally bludgeoned to death, and Giulio becomes obsessed with the murder, bound and determined that Sasha and Federica are mimicking the plot of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Each of them, he guesses, is committing a murder for the other, and now it's Sasha's turn to kill.
Obviously the film is meant to be an homage to Hitchcock's Strangers and Dial M for Murder, but it's chock-full of other, wink-wink nudge-nudge self-referential nods. The video store Giulio frequents sports a massive poster by the front door for Argento's 2003 film The Card Player (if you're going to plug your own films, shouldn't you choose one that wasn't universally hated by critics and filmgoers alike?) and the shelf behind the clerk's desk has Scarlet Diva stocked, Asia Argento's directorial project from a few years back. It's all a bit silly. The homage to Hitchcock, unfortunately, is too heavy-handed and obvious to really work. Yes, it's a decent murder mystery, and yes, Argento does include his trademark twist ending, but if you really want to see a great Hitchcock-inspired film, Argento's earlier giallo films such as The Bird With the Crystal Plumage do a much better job of it.
The lighting and cinematography are utilitarian, in a sense: they certainly give you a great view of the action, and nothing's ever underlit or obscured, but they do it artlessly. We're only allowed a few short glimpses of the creativity and magic we'd expect from an Argento film in the form of some lovely architectural shots of the film's setting, Torino. The soundtrack is a constant distraction--I'm having a really hard time recalling a single moment in the film that wasn't accompanied with often inappropriate music from a special level of made-for-TV hell. In suspenseful movies, silence really can be golden. The UK-produced dubbing is similarly irritating. The tone often doesn't quite jive with the actions and expressions of the characters, and at its worst is very shrill.
It could be argued that Do You Like Hitchcock? has merit in its unusual treatment of the "gaze". Giulio is obsessed with watching--in the way that the movie viewer herself watches--and he feels his voyeurism makes him part of the crimes and intrigue unfolding around him. Eventually his role as observer transcends the passive, making him feel a kind of responsibility to unveil what has really been going on, and ultimately making him a target. However, the theme is never really explored to its fullest potential, and certainly breaks no new ground.
All in all, Do You Like Hitchcock? is worth a watch for mystery or thriller fans: the story itself is really pretty decent, even if there is nothing else particularly remarkable about the film. Blood and gore is kept at a bare minimum, and there are some pretty tense chase scenes, but you'd be best off not viewing it as an Argento film.
Maybe I just need to watch more Hitchcock.
It's not a great film, either, mind you. What you end up with is a reasonably tense and well-written murder mystery flick. The problem is it's just not what we've come to love and expect from Mr Argento. You never feel as if the protagonist is stuck in a nightmare--in fact, he's a pretty unsympathetic character in general, so it's hard to feel anything for him at all.
The film starts out with our protagonist, Giulio, as a child, and making his way through the woods on a bike. Upon spying a cloaked woman on the path ahead of him, he decides to follow her to a decrepit cabin, where he witnesses her ritually slaughtering a chicken with another woman. Giulio is so shocked by the violence that he blows his cover, falling from his perch by the window he was peering in through, and the two women give chase to him. Nothing really comes of this scene except for the occasional flashback later on in the film, and a sort of parallel to Giulio's later life.
Cut to the present, and unsurprisingly, Giulio is still a peeping tom. He's not following witches around anymore, however, just spying on his neighbour across the street with binoculars. This sultry beauty, Sasha, he finds, is constantly fighting with her abusive mother. He runs into her on the street at several points, mainly in the video shop they both frequent (Giulio is a film student studying German Expressionism, and Sasha is a self-professed Hitchcock nut). When Sasha begins showing a romantic interest in Federica, a mysterious blonde, it's not long before Sasha's mother is brutally bludgeoned to death, and Giulio becomes obsessed with the murder, bound and determined that Sasha and Federica are mimicking the plot of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Each of them, he guesses, is committing a murder for the other, and now it's Sasha's turn to kill.
Obviously the film is meant to be an homage to Hitchcock's Strangers and Dial M for Murder, but it's chock-full of other, wink-wink nudge-nudge self-referential nods. The video store Giulio frequents sports a massive poster by the front door for Argento's 2003 film The Card Player (if you're going to plug your own films, shouldn't you choose one that wasn't universally hated by critics and filmgoers alike?) and the shelf behind the clerk's desk has Scarlet Diva stocked, Asia Argento's directorial project from a few years back. It's all a bit silly. The homage to Hitchcock, unfortunately, is too heavy-handed and obvious to really work. Yes, it's a decent murder mystery, and yes, Argento does include his trademark twist ending, but if you really want to see a great Hitchcock-inspired film, Argento's earlier giallo films such as The Bird With the Crystal Plumage do a much better job of it.
The lighting and cinematography are utilitarian, in a sense: they certainly give you a great view of the action, and nothing's ever underlit or obscured, but they do it artlessly. We're only allowed a few short glimpses of the creativity and magic we'd expect from an Argento film in the form of some lovely architectural shots of the film's setting, Torino. The soundtrack is a constant distraction--I'm having a really hard time recalling a single moment in the film that wasn't accompanied with often inappropriate music from a special level of made-for-TV hell. In suspenseful movies, silence really can be golden. The UK-produced dubbing is similarly irritating. The tone often doesn't quite jive with the actions and expressions of the characters, and at its worst is very shrill.
It could be argued that Do You Like Hitchcock? has merit in its unusual treatment of the "gaze". Giulio is obsessed with watching--in the way that the movie viewer herself watches--and he feels his voyeurism makes him part of the crimes and intrigue unfolding around him. Eventually his role as observer transcends the passive, making him feel a kind of responsibility to unveil what has really been going on, and ultimately making him a target. However, the theme is never really explored to its fullest potential, and certainly breaks no new ground.
All in all, Do You Like Hitchcock? is worth a watch for mystery or thriller fans: the story itself is really pretty decent, even if there is nothing else particularly remarkable about the film. Blood and gore is kept at a bare minimum, and there are some pretty tense chase scenes, but you'd be best off not viewing it as an Argento film.
Maybe I just need to watch more Hitchcock.
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