Following the recent release of Argento’s debut film The Bird with the Cystal Plumage, Arrow Video’s next HD Argento instalment is his 1982 return to gialli, Tenebrae.
Italian cinema has been dominated over many decades by waves of popular genres and producers, screenwriters, directors et al have always been quick to the jump on the latest and most popular genre and flog it until it is all but dead. With the release of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in 1970 Argento built on a solid raft of Italian horrors, mostly those directed by Mario Bava, and created a new singular vision of giallo cinema. This led to a lot of imitators, some good, some utterly dreadful but a lot of them nonetheless.
Argento was reportedly not too pleased about this and began to move in different directions with his films, opting to work in areas altogether more supernatural. With Tenebrae though Argento decided to once again make a relatively straightforward (perhaps not straightforward in any objective sense though) giallo.
Tenebrae is a not a simple stalk and slash giallo though and Argento has a large amount of fun playing with what one expects to see in a film of this nature and also in toying with the controversies that had arisen from critical responses to his films. The protagonist of Tenebrae is gialli author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) and the murders that occur are directly inspired by his most recent book, entitled Tenebrae. If this concept of horror fiction inspiring real life murder wasn’t playful enough, when one discovers who the murderer or murderers is/are it is quite clear just how much fun Argento is having with this film. Lines in the film such as “So, Tenebrae is about human perversion and its effects on society…”, uttered by a critic, take very little unpacking but they really do add a lot of intertextual humour to the proceedings.
Set in a Rome vastly different to that of his earlier films, Argento has commented that Tenebrae is set in a futuristic almost post-apocalyptic Rome, Tenebrae is filled with visually striking locations, all framed in unique and interesting ways. The lighting from Luciano Tovoli adds to the futuristic and uncanny look to the film, flooding each frame with an almost absurd amount of light. Add to this one of Argento’s most impressive set piece death scenes, complete with a stunning if misplaced Louma Crane single take shot, a pounding and memorable score and razor sharp editing and you have one of Argento’s finest features to date.
Tenebrae is a a rich film and it would probably be easy to add a few thousand more words to this review but suffice to say this is one of Argento’s finer films (Deep Red, Crystal Plumage and Tenebrae are my personal favourites) and comes highly recommended.
The new Blu-ray from Arrow Video is mostly competently put together with a suitably bright and clean transfer but there are problems. Variable grain is certainly present, as it is with many Arrow releases, but there does appear to have been some digital manipulation in places that has resulted in some slightly odd looking issues. Far better than the disastrous Bird with the Crystal Plumage release but still not quite right, this transfer is not going to win awards but it’s not flawed enough to warrant avoiding. Italian and English audio tracks are provided with the Italian being marginally more preferable (many of the actors are English but are still dubbed in post) and of a slightly higher quality.
The extras provided are superb with two commentary tracks that are both definitely worth checking out. Thomas Rostock provides one commentary and like his track for Deep Red it is a very academic take filled with Rostock’s thoughts on symbolism and mirroring themes in Argento’s work. A little dry and repetitive, Rostock’s approach is not entirely my cup of tea but it is still a good addition to the disc. The track from Kim Newman and Alan Jones is a lighter affair and an easier listen but still provides a lot of detail.
In addition to the commentaries Arrow have commissioned more of their usual interview segments. These are particularly enlightening, especially Argento’s thoughts on the film, but are marred by wildly fluctuating audio volumes. This is a particular problem in the Simonetti interview and hopefully Arrow will fix this issue with future pressings.
Tenebrae is available to buy or rent on Blu-ray now.
Film [Rating:4/5]
Blu-ray [Rating:3.5/5]
– 4 Sleeve art options with original and newly commissioned art work
– Double-sided fold-out poster
– Exclusive collector’s booklet featuring brand new writing on Tenebrae by Alan Jones, author of Profondo Argento
– Brand new HD restoration of the film
– Audio Commentary with Argento experts, journalists and writers Kim Newman and Alan Jones
– Audio Commentary with Argento expert Thomas Rostock
– Introduction by Daria Nicolodi
– Screaming Queen! Daria Nicolodi remembers Tenebrae
– The Unsane World of Tenebrae: An interview with Dario Argento
– A Composition for Carnage: Claudio Simonetti on Tenebrae
– Goblin: Tenebrae and Phenomena Live from the Glasgow Arches
– Original Trailer
Original art by Rick Melton
In original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with LPCM mono English & Italian audio with optional English subtitles for English and Italian audio
