bloody terror: MY FAVOURITE GIALLI

Tuesday, 1 March 2011

MY FAVOURITE GIALLI

Italian thrillers known singularly as giallo (pronounced as “jah-lo”, and meaning “yellow” as per the primary colour used on the lurid book covers that these flicks are named for) and plurally as gialli, have long been an obsession of mine. Starting back in the early 1980's with my first exposure to whited-out, censored VHS copies of Dario Argento’s classics like Deep Red and The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, I developed a taste for these highly stylized and often nonsensical mysteries highlighted by violent and indelible set pieces.

A problem some people have in engaging with these films is that, unlike a typical blockbuster, they ask something from the viewer. As a burgeoning fan of odd films from around the world, I learned to let go of my preconceived notions of what constitutes story, I learned to look past horrible dubbing, butchered framing and cut prints, and I learned to enjoy the impressionist response that these film elicited from me. Through my eyes, watching a giallo is all about the experience, the feeling. It’s Hitchcock’s theory of “pure cinema” at its most basic. For me, this is extremely rewarding.

Defining giallo is somewhat difficult, but here are some of their prevalent characteristics: Their heyday was from the mid-1960’s to early 80’s. The majority of gialli are from Italy, though Spain and other countries also contributed to the canon. These murder mysteries frequently feature killers clothed in black leather gloves, a raincoat and a fedora, obscuring their identities and sometimes genders; they are highly fetishized. As mentioned previously, the attack scenes are the highlights of each film, giving the director an opportunity to use all of cinema's resources: composition, sound, editing, movement, intense colour or stark black and white. These films are lurid, dealing with drug addiction, backstreet abortions, extreme sexuality, child murder, greed, blackmail, and insanity. Conversation and threats are whispered through closed doors, over the phone, or left playing on reel-to-reel tape recorders. Their musical scores are memorable, created by maestros like Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Riz Ortolani, and in the case of Argento’s Deep Red, Goblin provides an appropriately pounding rock score. In almost every gialli, someone will swig from a bottle of J&B and in many cases, someone will shout “Pronto. Pronto? PRONTO!” into an oversized telephone receiver. The titles of these films are almost poetic, making obscure and evocative use of words; the films themselves are also very much like this, but in a filmic sense. Look for directors with names like Argento, Bava, Martino, Fulci, Dallamano, Margheriti and Lado; actresses Edwige Fenech, Susan Scott, Erica Blanc, Florinda Bolkan, Anita Strindberg, Mimsy Farmer and Daria Nicolodi; actors George Hilton, Fabio Testi, Ray Lovelock, Ivan Rassimov, Franco Nero and Jean Sorel. Don't forget, the revelation of the killer or killers is frequently secondary to the path we take getting there. You've been warned.

Put your understanding of conventional storytelling on hold, pour yourself a Scotch on the rocks, and begin your fall into the underbelly of cinema. There’s just so much out there to discover in this uncharted territory. Here is a list of my most highly recommended gialli:

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK