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8
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
Francesco
Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) leads an existential
existence as caretaker of a most unusual cemetery...
After
a tenure as an actor (City
Of The Living Dead) and assistant to Dario
Argento (Tenebre),
Michele Soavi turned to directing with a well-received
documentary on his mentor, Dario
Argento's World of Horror (1986). Essentially
a clip compendium, it nevertheless proved successful
and secured Soavi a chance to direct his first
narrative feature, the stylish slasher Stage
Fright (1987). Two stormy collaborations with
Argento followed —
The Church
(1989) and The Sect
(1991) — before Soavi
struck out on his own with Dellamorte
Dellamore. Released Stateside under the
silly moniker of Cemetery
Man, the film is a delicate balancing act
of the surreal, the absurd, the comical and the
horrific, establishing a lineage of sorts with
Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, though it
is on the whole a far more sophisticated and poetic
effort. The film is completely unlike any other
Italian zombie movie, being more of a surrealist
fantasy at heart, but it still offers enough of
the red stuff to satisfy the gorehounds in the
audience.
Based
on an offshoot of the popular Italian comic series
Dylan Dog, the script by Soavi and Gianni
Romoli is faithful
to the absurd tone of its source material. Whereas
Soavi's earlier pictures suffered from deficiencies
in plotting (Stage Fright)
or having too many hands in the mix (both Argento
productions), Cemetery Man
is more consistently accomplished. The mix of
humor and horror is uncommonly effective, never
betraying a condescending mentality, and the director's
extraordinary visual sensibility results in some
poetic images that are impossible to forget. The
tone of the film is oddly existential, contrasting
the drudgery of bureaucracy with an absurdly casual
attitude towards the grotesque occurrences. Essentially
employed to look after the cemetery and to deal
with the "returners" who refuse to stay
buried (the word zombie is never uttered
in the film), Dellamorte's only companion is a
mute sidekick called Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro),
whose main passions are food and television. Dellamorte's
daily grind is one of utter boredom and isolation,
interrupted only by a passionate tryst with a
grieving widow (Anna Falchi) that comes to a sudden
end when she's attacked by the reanimated corpse
of her late husband. Subsequently, the woman begins
to resurface in different forms —
as a prostitute, an angel of death, and so forth
— as Dellamorte continues
to struggle to come to grips with his existence.
In the meantime, Gnaghi finds love, as well —
in the form of the decapitated head of the mayor's
daughter, which has returned to life, of a sort,
and which he keeps stored in a caved-in TV set.
Between the stress of his job and the grief of
losing the woman he loved, Dellamorte begins to
crack under the pressure and his existence with
Gnaghi becomes more and more absurdly out of step
with reality.
It is to Soavi's credit that
the film manages to balance so many absurd elements
while maintaining its own internal logic. The
film is cheerfully ridiculous, but never to the
point that one is taken out of the story. If the
film has a problem, it is one consistent with
his early works — the pacing is uneven. The images
are stunning, but sometimes it's as if the director
is too indulgent of them — as if he can't bear
to cut away from them for the sake of advancing
the story, thus creating a sluggish progression
in sections of the film. On the whole, however,
it is a far more accomplished film than any of
his earlier pictures, making his lengthy sabbatical
from filmmaking to attend to his son's illness
all the more regrettable. Subsequent forays into
TV work (Uno Bianca) fulfill the film's
promise, however, displaying a firmer grasp of
storytelling and a better control of pacing while
still showcasing his unique visual style.
The director
is well served by an ideal cast. Though it seems
he has since distanced himself from the role,
Rupert Everett (My Best
Friend's Wedding) is absolutely perfect
as Dellamorte. Interestingly, the visual design
of the character in the comic book was based on
Everett's lanky frame, so his casting was a real
coup for the director. He brings the right touch
of dark humor to the role, making the character
sympathetic even when he loses his grip on reality;
it is far and away his best film role to date.
As Gnaghi, French musician Francois Hadji-Lazaro
comes across as a bizarre variation on Curly,
of The Three Stooges, but he is very adept at
bringing out the sweetness inherent in the character.
He makes a perfect companion to Everett's lean
and sardonic anti-hero and is more than able to
hold his own during their scenes together. Anna
Falchi is cast in three different roles, none
of which require an extraordinary amount of thesping
ability, but she is perfectly cast as Dellamorte's
ideal woman. With her delicately beautiful face
and absolutely stunning physique, she makes a
profound impression with limited screen time —
her love scene with Everett atop her husband's
grave (complete with a visual reference to a gag
present in the U.S. edition of Bava's The
Girl Who Knew Too Much, as the portrait
of Falchi's dead husband reacts in shock to their
lovemaking) is one of the most wonderfully perverse,
erotic and humorous vignettes in all of Italian
horror. The supporting cast includes an amusing
turn from Mickey Knox, probably best known to
Italian horror fans for his dubbing work on the
films of Sergio Leone (notably Once
Upon A Time In The West, 1968), as a perpetually
clueless police inspector.
With its luminous cinematography
by Mauro Marchetti and excellent score from Manuel
DeSica, Cemetery Man
is never less than interesting. If it shows some
uncertainty in its storytelling, the visuals and
performances are enough to hold one's attention.
Soavi's mixture of the surreal and the mundane
will likely remain his best-loved work, as well
as one of the most popular — albeit atypical —
of Italian horror films.
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Anchor Bay's long-awaited release of Cemetery
Man is a mixed bag. Previously released
by Fox on VHS and laserdisc in a pale full screen
transfer, the film gets a nice 1.66/16x9 transfer
that falls short of the R2 release by Medusa under
its original (and infinitely preferable) title.
Apparently taken from two separate source elements,
it begins with English language titles but switches
over to Italian ones as the technical credits
begin to roll. The print is fully uncut, and the
framing looks correct, but there are some problems
with the transfer. The image is colorful, but
much too bright, thus exposing some of Sergio
Stivaletti's special effects work to closer scrutiny
than intended. Detail is also a little on the
soft side, suggesting some heavy image filtering.
The end result is certainly watchable and should
suffice for Region 1 viewers who don't have the
capability to buy the Medusa disc, but those who
already have the R2 edition may want to bypass
this release. Audio options include the original
stereo track, as well as a 5.1 remix, both in
English. Since Everett dubs his own performance,
this is preferable to the absent Italian track,
though it would have been nice if AB had gone
the extra mile to include the Italian track for
the sake of completion. Both tracks are clean
and clear, with vivid music and sound effects,
making it a matter of personal preference as to
which mix to listen to. Extras include a theatrical
trailer, liner notes by AB's Michael Felsher,
a poster and still gallery and, best of all, a
newly produced featurette, Death is Beautiful,
which includes interviews with Soavi, Romoli and
Falchi. It's a pleasure to see Soavi, all too
often uninvolved in the DVD supplements of his
films, speaking about his work — he and Romoli
are both subtitled, whereas the still-stunning
Falchi speaks in fluent English.
6/23/06
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