GIALLO

The city of Turin is terrorized by a serial killer who kidnaps, tortures, and then kills young women. The killer's latest victim seems to be the model Celine, of whom Linda, her sister, has no news; for this reason, Linda turns to the police to report her disappearance. Inspector Avolfi, called 'New York' for his long stay in his youth in the Big Apple, is following the killer's case and, with Linda's help, will try to catch him. In recent years, people often hear bad things about Dario Argento. Perhaps it is the power of the internet to give voice to those who usually stay silent or the fashion of the moment that focuses on the demolition of the old glories of cinema at all costs. Of course, there is also the most obvious option, that is, that people talk badly about Argento because Argento gives way to people talking badly about his works. Some apocalyptic individuals attribute the decline of the national Dario to as far back as the post-Phenomena era, while other pessimistic-realists place the artistic death of our 'hero' in the year of Trauma; I, however, tend to frame Il Cartaio as the 'beginning of the end.' An end that is naturally never absolute but always temporary, given that Dario Argento has managed to make bad things like Il Cartaio, indeed, and this 'Giallo' but also interesting works like the two episodes he directed for the series Masters of Horror. However, one thing we can be certain of is that after Nonhosonno—the last truly Argentian film—the Argento's touch is lost, even in those films that can be defined as successful but in which it would be difficult to trace back to the director of Deep Red if one did not read his name in the credits (or tail). Argento has normalized; his recognizable style, even in questionable works like The Phantom of the Opera, has disappeared, leading to suspicions that behind his latest films, there is a lack of the will and passion of old. Operettas 'alimentari' on commission from producers or fans, so to speak. And unfortunately, it is precisely these macroscopic 'emotional' flaws that kill a film like Giallo even before the equally macroscopic structural flaws. Giallo is a film conceived in the wrong way and evidently little felt by all, almost a work born from the need to do something for the sake of it, with all the consequences that haste and superficiality could bring. The film was born from a collaboration between the Roman director and a US production company, and the screenplay was written by two Americans, the debutant Jim Agnew (who also appears as an assistant director!) and Sean Keller, who before Giallo had written fanta-beast-movies for TV (Mammoth, Kraken, and Gryphon). So far, nothing wrong, in fact hypothetically more budget and a creative freedom similar to that experienced in Masters of Horror. And instead, disaster. If the budget amounts to 14 million dollars, the story and the script in general leak from all sides, showing themselves not as a film by Dario Argento, but as a film in the mold of those by Dario Argento… almost a poorly executed imitation! Themes dear to the author, such as the trauma in the killer's past and his perversion, are repeated, which this time takes on the almost parodic form of consuming photos of corpses for onanistic purposes. The characters completely lack depth, moving from the willing but banal delineation of Inspector Avolfi to the 'not received' construction of his sidekick, Linda, ending with the ridiculous killer who is yellow in name and in fact (he is affected by jaundice), goes crazy for pacifier-shaped lollipops, and expresses himself exclusively with words like 'Whore,' 'Bitch,' 'Die,' moreover with a hoarse/shrill voice typical of cartoon villains. But perhaps the banality of it all and the bad characters are the lesser evil, considering that even everything else is of a disarming superficiality. Imagine a film in which characters do senseless things like starting to run from the fugitive when the pursuer is minding his own business and has not noticed his presence, or characters who arrive at the solution of the case (or part of it) suddenly without there being a real investigation, a clarifying element, a detail glimpsed but initially escaped attention… nothing! 'Giallo, giallo… maybe the killer is sick with jaundice? Let's go to the hospital!' We also find absurdities such as the police inspector as a boy killing a man in cold blood, with knife stabs, in front of a policeman; in reality, there would be a trial, a reformatory, juvenile prison, psychiatrists, Vespa who would do the TV broadcast, and instead in Giallo that little avenger becomes a police inspector as an adult. Visually speaking, there is anonymity. The only scene worth noting in terms of direction is a notable wavering tracking shot during a flashback; otherwise, it seems like a TV movie, one of those made by Mr. Nobody during the night. Even the photography and sets are very flat, the special effects are not relevant (except for a 'hammering' in pure Stivaletti style), and in one scene, the operator is even reflected in a mirror… that is, the first take, no control of the dailies, and no attention in post-production! In such a scenario where even international actors of the caliber of Adrien Brody and Emmanuelle Seigner do not appear minimally involved, there is really little to save in this film, which could rightly be defined as one of Dario Argento's worst works. A mention of merit just to the music by Marco Werba, sometimes dreamy, sometimes more obsessive, but capable of giving a good noir atmosphere anyway. Curiosity. Giallo was initially distributed in Italy only on home video by Dall'Angelo Pictures in the autumn of 2010. After several months, on July 1, 2011, Dario Argento's film arrived in theaters (in a few theaters) thanks to Lumiere Group Multimediale with a modified title in Giallo/Argento and a promotional campaign that attempts to recall Alfred Hitchcock.