THE SACRAMENT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - Scary-ass religious-cult thriller blessed with malevolence galore and an astonishing Oscar-calibre performance from character actor Gene Jones!!!

TIFF VANGUARD - #TIFF 2013
Programmed By Colin Geddes
The Sacrament (2013) ***1/2
Dir. Ti West
Starring: Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen, Kentucker Audley, Amy Seimetz, Gene Jones

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Why would a Christian commune, dedicated to the creation of a Heaven on Earth in homage to the pacifist principles of Jesus Christ, require armed guards? Are they there to keep people out or keep them in? Well, as we discover during the creepy slow burn of Ti West's new thriller The Sacrament, it's clearly a little of both. The name of the game in Eden Parish is secrecy which, like all religious cults (including most mainstream organized religions), is what keeps them powerful. Indoctrination, coercion, exploitation, deception and brainwashing are the key elements of all faith-based ministries or, if you will, industries. Some, however. are more extremist than most and such is the case with the religion/cult that Patrick's (Kentucker Audley) sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz) has fallen in with. Accompanied by Sam (AJ Bowen) and Jake (Joe Swanberg), two pals/colleagues from a major online multimedia news outlet, the trio journey to a strange, undisclosed island on foreign soil to investigate her whereabouts and well-being.

Armed only with cameras, the three men are initially freaked out by the surly and burly machine-gun-toting guards who guide them into the compound, but as they explore the inner workings of the camp - populated with those like Caroline who lost their way in the world through various addictions and found their way back to what seems to be a clean and green way of life - it begins to seem like Eden Parish is not without merit.

The silver lining, however, is just that. Tranquility in the parish is only skin deep. As they slowly begin to notice an alarming number of aberrations, they fear for their own lives as well as those who are not quite fitting in to the extremist views of the charismatic cult leader, Father (Gene Jones). In addition to being charming, persuasive and highly intelligent, Father, an oft-cool-shades-adorned fleshy orator with definite fascist undertones is a downright creep - a skilfully malevolent manipulator and exploiter.

This is one chilling, scary-ass movie that grabs you very early in the proceedings and doesn't let up - steadily mounting in its intensity until a climax that will have you begging for mercy. There are no cheap shocks and the violence is always muted, roiling jus below the surface. I doubt Mr. West is a student of the late, great Val Lewton (most young contemporary filmmakers have yet to make his acquaintance), but if he is, I'm not surprised and if he isn't, he should be since he still has a few tricks to learn from a real master. (God knows, Scorsese, Friedkin and many other greats continue to acknowledge their debt to Lewton.) With this film and his previous effort, the fun and scary paranormal thriller The Innkeepers, West is proving to be a potential master of finding chills, thrills and evil in dark, yet unlikely corners and like Lewton, his genre indulgences are about so much more than the simple, but effective narrative coat hangers he adorns his explorations of humanity on.

One element that doesn't quite hold up in the movie is the inconsistencies with respect to the film within the film - the documentary that the trio is making on Eden Parish. Most of the time, we're carried along by the sheer force of West's fine direction, but occasionally, we're ripped out of the proceedings by some of the intrusive title cards that remind us we're watching a finished product that's already gone viral. It occasionally takes us a bit of time to get back into the otherwise riveting trajectory of the tale. It also suggests that someone will escape the evil, though in fairness, we're never sure who and just how many are getting out.

This is, though, a bit of a drag because the movie has a kind of paranoia-infused 70s sensibility that suggests we might be cascading into a completely hope-bereft conclusion. That we're treated to a tiny taste of hope so early and so consistently doesn't quite fit the form. I even wondered if, at any point during the post-production process, West and his team gave the old college try to mute the film within the film stuff, toss the title cards and use the more obvious doc-styled footage "naturally" within the narrative and actions of the characters rather than the manner in which they are employed. Part of me thinks, based upon the coverage that appears onscreen, that this might have been a worthy pursuit. Then again, I wasn't sitting in the fucking edit suite, so what the fuck do I know? Maybe it was a consideration and didn't work, but I do hate to think it wasn't at least tried.

My only other quarrel with the picture is that it's full of babes and there's a fair bit of talk and suggestion of boink-o-rama activity in Eden Parish. No offence, but the issue of sex within the compound is brought up and that we get nary a flash of said activity is a bit like introducing a loaded gun into a scene and not firing it. Let's not forget the immortal nude harvest dance in the original 70s The Wicker Man - totally creepy and hubba-hubba-sexy.

But, I digress.

Happily, the performances from all the leads in The Sacrament are top of the line and it's to West's undying credit and great eye that the picture features the finest use of extras and background performers I've seen in any recent movie. If, however, there is anything resembling justice, Jesus and/or the God of Abraham on Planet Hollywood, Gene Jones as Father deserves as many supporting actor accolades as it is possible to bestow upon someone - including an Oscar nomination. This is no chew-the-scenery nonsense that so many more established stars will barf up when they play a villain - Jones is malevolence-incarnate because his performance is brilliantly muted.

The camera loves the guy and it's impossible to take your eyes off him whenever he's onscreen - not just the hallmark of any charismatic cult leader, but he brings a depth of intelligence and understanding to the character that makes us (almost) like him. He also infuses the performance with an element of tragedy - he's no mere manipulator, but rather, a man who has come to believe so strongly in his beliefs that he's managed to convince even himself that his might is right and it's that very element of self-faith and self-love that Jones steadfastly nails to a cross that convinces us why such individuals are alternately on top of the world just as clearly as they're on a fast-track to destruction.

You might remember Gene Jones from the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men during the famous coin-toss scene which, for me, was the performance in that movie that set the bar and proved the old adage: "There are no small parts..." Here, though, West has given Gene Jones the role of a lifetime. I sincerely hope Jones's work in The Sacrament is recognized, acknowledged and propulsive. The world needs more character actors of his calibre and I demand that he become as gloriously ubiquitous as Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Charles Durning, Ned Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Paul Giamatti and every other great actor who more than propped up their fair share of pictures, but also created a myriad of living, breathing human beings who somehow, with their very appearance made their own work and that of everyone else touched with a bit of that old silver screen immortality.

All in all, The Sacrament is a terrific little thriller and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Maybe that will be enough to change my curmudgeonly nattering about the film within the film elements and the lack of sex. Probably not, but it won't matter. I like the picture - a lot!!!

"The Sacrament" is programmed by the brilliant Colin Geddes in the TIFF Vanguard series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013 (#TIFF13). Get your tickets at the TIFF website HERE.

BLUE RUIN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - #TIFF 2013 - Vengeance is mine Sayeth the Storyteller, so bugger off!

Blue Ruin (2013) ***
Dir. Jeremy Saulnier
Starring: Macon Blair

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Vengeance is always a fine motive for any movie character. It delivers the kind of cathartic kick to the stomach that many of us enjoy receiving. Though many such tales come attached with a sense of loss and/or remorse, there are just as many that celebrate the actions of the vigilante without too many strings attached.

Blue Ruin gets to have its cake and eat it too. Such storytelling gluttony can easily belch up work that bites off far more than it can chew, but here, the narrative manages to tuck away its disparate elements with modesty so that we are happily engaged for a good deal of the picture's running time and occasionally confounded in the satisfying ways one might hope for. With this, his sophomore feature effort, the loaded-writer-director-cinematographer-bases Jeremy Saulnier holds, don't quite benefit from a grand slam, but a couple of decent hits yield enough good play that we're engaged by a relatively fresh take on the genre.

Saulnier's direction is always taut, though his script feels occasionally too clever for its own good. At times we can see the stitching of his desire to take us in unexpected directions - so much so, that we're occasionally taken out of the narrative's trajectory because we become a bit too conscious of wondering just how Saulnier will surprise us. Granted, I'd prefer to find fault in writing that works overtime, but I lament equally that Saulnier pays a bit of a price for this. It's the sort of minor flaw that feels like I'm griping about an embarrassment of riches.

So be it - the tale feels one polish short of a kind of perfection the film deserves. Though, give me this complaint anytime, thanks. It beats complaining about no originality or ambition.

Dwight (Macon Blair) is our vengeance-seeking hero. As introduced to us, he's a most unlikely Paul Kersey (architect-tuned-NYC-vigilante in Death Wish) or Buford Pusser (the big-stick-wielding Tennessee Sheriff of Walking Tall), but rather, a kind of Virginia Ratso Rizzo living off garbage and spending his nights in a rust-bucket on the beach. Upon receiving information about an imminent prison release, he desperately and haphazardly commits an act of revenge that is as bumbling as it is jaw dropping in its ferocious brutality.

He errs, however, in leading those closest to the person he extracts vengeance from straight in the direction of some innocent people. The entire reason for his violent actions turns itself inside out and we become witness to a terrifying cat and mouse of mounting payback. Amidst the carnage, we're treated to a telling reflection of American gun culture as well as a kind of scathing matter-of-fact exploration of White Trash loyalties rooted as they are in survival and a sense of entitlement at all costs.

Macon Blair's performance as the hapless Dwight is a marvel of balance - we're constantly empathetic with this sad, beaten man who gains a sense of self respect in the most misplaced action imaginable and finally must gird his loins to the challenges of an ever deepening chasm of violence. The hole he digs for himself is somewhat reminiscent of William H. Macy's spiralling actions in Fargo, but Dwight, unlike Jerry the car salesman, is far from lazy and just plain stupid. Blair shows us a genuine sensitivity and intelligence in a man debilitated by an initial perpetration of violence against him that sets him into a spiral of depression and obsession which, furthermore plunges him into making one horrible mistake after another.

Finally, he's faced with a myriad of loose ends that can mean only the worst thing imaginable for those who deserve it least. Someone needs to tie them up and Dwight is finally the only one who can. Any initial feelings of elation we might have received from the vengeance extracted transform to utter disbelief in a world that does indeed seem to be responsible for forcing people into living by codes that should have been left to myth rather than the reality of practise.

Saulnier's picture is yet another that says, "Welcome to America," and in so doing leaves us speechless.

"Blue Ruin" is part of the TIFF Vanguard Series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. Visit the TIFF website HERE.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toby Jones overshadows Berberian Pretensions

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
dir. Peter Strickland **1/2
Starring: Toby Jones
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sound has been with movies almost from the beginning. Long before Al Jolson uttered the immortal words "You ain't heard nothin' yet" in 1927's The Jazz Singer, filmmakers experimented with having original scores composed for their films and even designing live foley and sound effects - all of which were achieved by full orchestras for some of the bigger releases in more established picture palaces. Once the "talkies" came, though, a whole new art and craft began to develop - not just synch sound recordists on set, but all the magicians in the sound studios who created effects, mixed and tweaked the sound and edited the sound.

In this day and age, sound has become, for better or worse (and depending on the film), the primary instigation for how, why, where and when to actually make picture cuts in genre pictures. Sadly, far too many contemporary directors that have absolutely no eye for creating decent action or suspense sequences, rely solely on sound to make up for their lack of talent. Or rather, they think they know precisely what they're doing and have their butts saved by editors as well as the low standards of audiences all afflicted with ADD.

One dreadful (and idiotically overrated) director after another (Christopher Nolan and JJ Abrams to name two especially egregious members of this ever-expanding club of dimwits), piece together a wide variety of badly composed, poorly conceived and mostly close shots, throw them into the post-production blender where picture editors must save the miserable footage by using sound as the driving force behind their cuts rather than propelling the image forward to hit dramatic beats. The moron directors think it's all about pace and creating suspense from cacophony when in actual fact, this style of shooting and cutting exhausts an audience to a point where watching the film has less to do with being able to follow a story as it is to be whacked repeatedly in the face.

We're bludgeoned and pummelled senselessly by sound and a whole whack of great artists and craftspeople in this field are turned into volume (of the amount AND level of audio variety) generators.

While, there are a number of great movies about movies, the only one that brilliantly and perfectly captures the art of sound men is still Brian DePalma's seminal thriller Blow Out which starred John Travolta as a movie sound recordist who tries to solve a mystery using the location sound he's recorded. (The Conversation counts as a great "sound" picture, but its focus is surveillance rather than the movies.)

Berberian Sound Studio could have been the best movie about sound in movies since DePalma's mournful thriller, but finally, it achieves that for about 30 of its 92 minutes until it starts spinning its wheels and diving into bargain basement Lynch-like surrealism and sledge hammer (albeit somewhat disingenuous) commentary on the effects of screen violence.

But, first, let's concentrate on the good.

Set during the heyday of Italian horror/suspense thrillers of the 70s, the picture tells the tale of Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a pathologically introspective sound man (which, ultimately, all great sound guys must be). He's as twee and British as Queen Elizabeth (but not quite as inbred) and he's taken a job presiding over the aural arts being applied in post-production to the latest blood-spattered giallo epic by Santini (Antonio Mancino), the reigning maestro of spaghetti horror.

At first, the film is a loving homage to the magnificent giallo genre and a great fish out of water tale. As Gilderoy works his sound magic on this ultra-violent and decidedly misogynistic gore-fest, things slowly and creepily build (not unlike the best Polanski) to a point where dream, reality and nightmare collide and eventually cross a line where we're experiencing a potential mental breakdown.

Alas, once the picture crosses over into this territory, tedium starts to set in. It's too bad. Toby Jones delivers a crackling good performance, whilst the production design and cinematography go above and beyond the call of duty in creating an atmosphere that seems like it was ripped out of the single greatest movie decade in the history of movies. But, as sure as Dario Argento is Italian, Gilderoy's mind starts to crack under the weight of the long hours, a xenophobic attitude (on both sides of the equation) and image after image of the most brutal violence against women.

What's a bit disappointing is that this is our expectation almost from the beginning and our hope, because the first half hour IS so cool and atmospheric (and a movie geek's wet dream), is that it will not veer into familiar territory. As such, the movie feels like a short film idea stretched out interminably over 90 minutes.

It was fun, however, being in a sound studio that bore all the familiar traces of what it was like to work with real film, mag stock and optical. No digital allowed, thanks! Weirdly, though, the most disappointing aspect next to the by-the-numbers surrealism is the fact that the movie SOUNDS like most movies today.

Oh, how I wish it all sounded like a great centre-speaker mono mix with that gentle hiss that can only emanate from optical and analog sound. If Berberian Sound Studio truly had the courage of its convictions - it should have adhered to every element of the period.

A good script might have worked wonders, also.

"Berberian Sound Studio" originally played during the Toronto International Film Festival's 2012 edition of the Vanguard series. It is currently in theatrical release via FilmsWeLike. In Toronto, it is playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

ROOM 237 - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Blending cine-mania with conspiracy theory, Rodney Ascher's clever & funny documentary opens your eyes wide shut to new insights on Kubrick's "The Shining" that you never knew, and perhaps, were even afraid to ask.

Room 237 (2012) ***1/2
TIFF 2012 - Vanguard Series
dir. Rodney Ascher
Starring: Bill Blakemore,
Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns,
John Fell Ryan, Jay Weidner

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Cineastes and those who follow conspiracy theorists have a lot of things in common. They're obsessive, slavishly devotional and frankly, almost fanatical in studying, appreciating and relentlessly imbibing in their respective fields of interest. Can their paths cross? You bet. I know. I am one of the afflicted (or blessed, depending on how you choose to look at it).

The engaging new documentary feature entitled Room 237 blends both cine-mania with conspiracy theory. Chances are, if you're a movie geek, you'll already understand the significance of this title and if you aren't, nor have you seen Stanley Kubrick's crazily scary, creepy and hypnotic film adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining, then let's just say it refers to a room in an isolated old hotel where something very, very horrific happened (and likely will again).

Using a treasure trove of clips and stills from Kubrick's canon, director Rodney Ascher interviews five people who have spent an unhealthy number of their waking hours (over an ever MORE unhealthy number of years) studying and dissecting the hidden meanings they purport are found buried within The Shining. Ascher's picture is not a traditional making-of documentary or even a critical appreciation in the usual sense. Instead, we examine each one of the subjects' theories.

All of them believe Kubrick used subliminal messages in the film and generated a high-profile horror movie to act as a mere foreground mask for its real meaning.

The most outrageous conspiracy theory presented in Room 237 is that Kubrick stuffed The Shining with numerous secret messages he hoped would work as both an apology and cinematic form of redemption to make up for the overwhelming guilt he carried for his part in faking all the Apollo Moon landings.

Say what?

Yes, Kubrick's filmmaking genius was contracted by the American government to fake the historic trips to the Moon. If, according to the conspiracy theorist, you look really hard, everything anyone would need to prove this is on-screen in The Shining.

Good to know.

In all fairness, those interviewed for Asxher's film spend a fair bit of time discussing Kubrick's obsessive attention to the most minute details of every inch, of every frame, of every shot. This is indisputable. Kubrick was indeed a meticulous control freak and he no doubt included numerous subliminal (or not so subliminal) images to bolster the drama, themes and/or style of his films.

I have some doubts, however, that The Shining is an apology to the world for faking the entire Apollo moon programme. So too should you, lest, of course you're planning to check yourself in for some electro-shock therapy. (Something my late barber, Bill Sciak did for many years. Not because he was insane, but because he enjoyed getting regularly zapped.)

Some of the other theories are definitely fruit-loopy, but those which suggest Holocaust allegory or the effects of colonization upon America's indigenous peoples are certainly not without interest. For me, though, the most intriguing presentation involves Kubrick playing with the space and time of his own sets by intentionally making sure the designs - and one room in particular - could not logically exist within the architectural setting of the Overlook Hotel.

This theory is kind of cool as it feels like the kind of perverse filmmaking trick Kubrick might use to help generate an overall sense of unease. The interviewee in question comes across as completely bonkers, but in spite of this, it provides considerable food for thought.

What I really appreciated about Rodney Ascher's approach to this material is that he himself never makes fun of these people. His entire mise-en-scène is quite clever. The interviewees never appear on camera - only in voice-over. The images are virtually all Kubrick all the time. They're used to tell the interviewees' stories and to provide as much visual evidence as possible to bolster the theories. Yes, Ascher uses the footage to occasionally buoy the film with a sense of humour, but it's never mean-spirited and it's often clever and in and of itself, a definite homage to Kubrick.

The movie will also make you think twice about Calumet Baking Soda. (I'll let you discover that nugget on your own.)

As I mentioned earlier, movies and conspiracy theory can be ideal bedfellows.

For me, my appreciation of conspiracy theory almost parallels my obsession with movies. It began in the 1960s, not long after experiencing a series of near-epiphanies upon first seeing films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Mario Bava's Black Sunday, Hammer Horror films, Sergio Leone westerns and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. Movies not only became my whole life, they were, in fact, my life force.

At this time I read Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods", the first of a series of best selling "non-fiction" books that popularized the notion that extraterrestrials had been to Earth in our deep, dark past and were responsible for mankind's development. This wasn't classic conspiracy theory per se, but it was one of the first times I became enamoured with postulations that refuted traditional ways of thinking about the world. Not that von Daniken's theories were especially original - many of them had already been identified by other scientists (including Carl Sagan who had little use for the Swiss author's interpretations). His theories, to my child's minds eye, we forcefully and punchily conveyed.

Tellingly, my childhood fascination with von Daniken clearly sprouted from the magic of movies - most notably, Kubrick. The monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey did a damn fine job transforming me into a true believer in extraterrestrial visitations in earlier eras of Earth's existence.

Years later, I became obsessed with the world of shortwave radio. Shortwave had always been an acquired taste - a niche market, if you will. (I had been introduced to it as a child by my cousin Paul who was an avid listener of "Radio Free Cuba.") In the pre-internet days of the 1990s, shortwave had become the haven for a wide variety of nut cases.

Needless to say, I was drawn to this like a fly to the proverbial dung heap.

Every manner of conspiracy theorist, right wing religious psycho and, allow me to add, heavy metal Christian Rockers managed to find a home on these oddball airwaves. It was here where I discovered one of the great conspiracy theorists of them all, the extremely entertaining Kurt Saxon, a survivalist based in Alpena, Arkansas. "Just let them Federal Boys try and find us here in these backwoods," was a common Saxon refrain.

Though Kurt's ruminations on impending social/economic collapse proved both sound and prescient, his theories regarding Eugenics were, shall we say, a tad too extreme for a reasonably tempered right-wing Communist and dyed-in-the-wool pseudo-Liberterian like myself.

The late 90s and beyond delivered the highest-rated talk radio in the world: "Coast-to-Coast-A.M. with the master of all things conspiratorial Art Bell and his eventual and current replacement George Noory.

Through these decades of avowed interest in conspiracy theory, I maintained my obsession with the movies - becoming, as I was once described by some anonymous blogger as, "a quite possibly clinically insane cinephile."

I suspect that with this history, it makes sense to have been positively disposed to a picture like Room 237. That said, it's a genuinely clever, compelling and funny look at one of the best movies of all time.

And that, my friends, is nothing to sneeze globs of blood-flecked snot at.

"Room 237" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2012). For information, visit the TIFF website HERE.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Great set design, appropriately garish (and stunning for it) cinematography and a great performance from Toby Jones come close to saving this pretentiously dull movie that, as made, feels like it might have been a better short.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
TIFF 2012 Vanguard Series
dir.
Peter Strickland **1/2
Starring: Toby Jones, Antonio Mancino
Review
By Greg
Klymkiw


Sound has been with movies almost from the beginning. Long before Al Jolson uttered the immortal words "You ain't heard nothin' yet" in 1927's The Jazz Singer, filmmakers experimented with having original scores composed for their films and even designing live foley and sound effects - all of which were achieved by full orchestras for some of the bigger releases in more established picture palaces. Once the "talkies" came, though, a whole new art and craft began to develop - not just synch sound recordists on set, but all the magicians in the sound studios who created effects, mixed and tweaked the sound and edited the sound.

In this day and age, sound has become, for better or worse (and depending on the film), the primary instigation for how, why, where and when to actually make picture cuts in genre pictures. Sadly, far too many contemporary directors that have absolutely no eye for creating decent action or suspense sequences, rely solely on sound to make up for their lack of talent. Or rather, they think they know precisely what they're doing and have their butts saved by editors as well as the low standards of audiences all afflicted with ADD.

One dreadful (and idiotically overrated) director after another (Christopher Nolan and JJ Abrams to name two especially egregious members of this ever-expanding club of dimwits), piece together a wide variety of badly composed, poorly conceived and mostly close shots, throw them into the post-production blender where picture editors must save the miserable footage by using sound as the driving force behind their cuts rather than propelling the image forward to hit dramatic beats. The moron directors think it's all about pace and creating suspense from cacophony when in actual fact, this style of shooting and cutting exhausts an audience to a point where watching the film has less to do with being able to follow a story as it is to be whacked repeatedly in the face.

We're bludgeoned and pummelled senselessly by sound and a whole whack of great artists and craftspeople in this field are turned into volume (of the amount AND level of audio variety) generators.

While, there are a number of great movies about movies, the only one that brilliantly and perfectly captures the art of sound men is still Brian DePalma's seminal thriller Blow Out which starred John Travolta as a movie sound recordist who tries to solve a mystery using the location sound he's recorded. (The Conversation counts as a great "sound" picture, but its focus is surveillance rather than the movies.)

Berberian Sound Studio could have been the best movie about sound in movies since DePalma's mournful thriller, but finally, it achieves that for about 30 of its 92 minutes until it starts spinning its wheels and diving into bargain basement Lynchian surrealism and sledge hammer (albeit somewhat disingenuous) commentary on the effects of screen violence.

But, first, let's concentrate on the good.

Set during the heyday of Italian horror/suspense thrillers of the 70s, the picture tells the tale of Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a pathologically introspective sound man (which, ultimately, all great sound guys must be). He's as twee and British as Queen Elizabeth (but not quite as inbred) and he's taken a job presiding over the aural arts being applied in post-production to the latest blood-spattered giallo epic by Santini (Antonio Mancino), the reigning maestro of spaghetti horror.

At first, the film is a loving homage to the magnificent giallo genre and a great fish out of water tale. As Gilderoy works his sound magic on this ultra-violent and decidedly misogynistic gore-fest, things slowly and creepily build (not unlike the best Polanski) to a point where dream, reality and nightmare collide and eventually cross a line where we're experiencing a potential mental breakdown.

Alas, once the picture crosses over into this territory, tedium starts to set in. It's too bad. Toby Jones delivers a crackling good performance, whilst the production design and cinematography go above and beyond the call of duty in creating an atmosphere that seems like it was ripped out of the single greatest movie decade in the history of movies. But, as sure as Dario Argento is Italian, Gilderoy's mind starts to crack under the weight of the long hours, a xenophobic attitude (on both sides of the equation) and image after image of the most brutal violence against women.

What's a bit disappointing is that this is our expectation almost from the beginning and our hope, because the first half hour IS so cool and atmospheric (and a movie geek's wet dream), is that it will not veer into familiar territory. As such, the movie feels like a short film idea stretched out interminably over 90 minutes.

It was fun, however, being in a sound studio that bore all the familiar traces of what it was like to work with real film, mag stock and optical. No digital allowed, thanks! Weirdly, though, the most disappointing aspect next to the by-the-numbers surrealism is the fact that the movie SOUNDS like most movies today.

Oh, how I wish it all sounded like a great centre-speaker mono mix with that gentle hiss that can only emanate from optical and analog sound. If Berberian Sound Studio truly had the courage of its convictions - it should have adhered to every element of the period.

A good script might have worked wonders, also.

"Berberian Sound Studio" is playing in the Toronto International Film Festival's 2012 edition of the Vanguard series on Monday September 10 The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 6:00 PM and Tuesday September 11 Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 3 2:45 PM. For ticket information, please visit the TIFF website HERE.