Well hello, it’s Burl here, with a review of a neo-giallo called The Editor! Ha ha, here we have a movie clearly made by fellows
who’ve watched a lot of movies, and while that’s a common enough situation, these
particular fellows have made something oddball and loonytune enough to be
interesting! Not wholly successful, mind you, but interesting and compelling!
There are tributes to the obvious suspects, namely Dario
Argento and Lucio Fulci, and also to filmmakers you might not expect, like for
instance David Cronenberg! Yes, they squeeze a breathing Beta tape in there,
and while this might cause a few readers to exclaim “Beta?!?,” please note that
the mere presence of this wheezing cassette, whichever format it might have been, is as incongruous as it might
sound! Ha ha!
Because, yes, again, this is a tribute to the giallo form; but its brief is broad
enough to include the crazy supernatural aspects found in the more fanciful
works of Argento, Fulci, Bava, so forth! So within its putative story, that of
Rey, a wooden-fingered film editor (at one time one of the greats, but now
working for an abusive producer on schlock pictures) who is caught in the
middle of a series of murders at his studio while in production on yet another
nonsensical, violent drama, we get increasingly bizarre instances of
quasi-Surrealist pingo-pango, with characters disappearing into netherworlds,
or surviving clearly fatal injuries, or maybe never existing at all! Ha ha! And
of course there is a never-ending series of call-outs to giallos both great and not-so-great! Ha ha! While at least we don’t
have any killers talking in Donald Duck voices, I do have a feeling the
idea was considered!
The picture, which was made on a pretty tight budget I’m
sure, looks pretty good, and the music, which includes a contribution from
Goblin’s own Claudio Simonetti, is effective enough, and the acting,
particularly that of Rey and of his devoted assistant, is surprisingly strong; and we do get a cameo appearance from the great Udo Kier;
but, speaking critically for just a moment, I do think the editing is one of the picture’s weakest points, ironically
enough! Scenes end abruptly, transitions are awkward, and nothing holds
together as well as it should, even for a parody-pastiche like this!
Moreover, the picture lacks the formal elegance one may
reasonably expect from one of the better giallos! There are many scenes of
spectacular (though frequently rubbery) gore, but nothing which earnes the name
of “setpiece;” whereas something by Argento is composed almost entirely of
setpieces! Think of the killer’s demise in Deep
Red! Here the murderer is dispatched by, I think, fire – ha ha, big deal!
There’s a lot of slapping of ladies in the movie, which is
played for laughs but sat a bit ill with me! Far better are the moustaches,
which seem real, and are perhaps in the end the most genuine things the picture
has to offer! Though I don’t doubt for a moment that the lads of Astron-6, who
made the movie (and who brought us the great Cool Guys), have a true, deep and heartfelt love of the genre they’re
playing fiddlesticks with here! Anyone with a similar admiration will find a
lot to enjoy in The Editor, and I
give the picture two Steenbecks and a hearty tousle on the top of the head! Ha
ha!
No comments:
Post a Comment