The more I see of Dario Argento’s work, the more I convinced I am 1977’s Suspiria is a fluke. That film is still contentious today, though I think it is a masterpiece. Mind you, the closer you examine it, the less sensical it appears. It really is a jumble of ideas that seem to have wondered in from various projects, but the sum total fascinates me.
Eight years on from that production, he made Phenomena, and here is where I suspect he started foraging for ideas from old scripts at the bottom of the discard pile. These are just a few of the elements in this mess: insects (especially larvae), a wheelchair-bound Donald Pleasance, a prestigious Swiss girl’s school, a serial killer, telepathy (with insects, no less), a razor-wielding chimpanzee, mirrors deliberately obscured by sweeps of fabric, sleepwalking, a highly improbable murder weapon, and a boat that explodes and becomes engulfed in flames which fill far more of a lake’s surface than I think was possible from the size of the gas can on board.
A 15-year-old Jennifer Connelly stars as the latest arrival at a Swiss school. I suspect Argento was trying to recapture any of the magic of Suspiria, as this is not just another girls’ school, but one in a German-speaking country. She’s also (like Jessica Harper in that other film) an American (and, so, automatically an outsider) and even arrives late on her first day. These may seem like superficial connections, but I made these associations effortlessly.
I doubt Argento had Wiley E. Coyote in mind as an inspiration, but her first sleepwalking scene seems to channel some of that weird cartoon energy. Isn’t it funny how, if somnambulism is part of the plot, the person afflicted with it is always walking obliviously into dangerous situations? It is never like in real-life, where people just usually find themselves standing not far from where they were sleeping. Instead, movie sleepwalkers always end up in situations like Connelly finds herself, walking along a several-story ledge which, of course, crumbles. Still asleep, she ends up dangling from the top of her nightgown that is caught on a bit of masonry, hanging there like a kitten by the scruff of its neck. She’s still out of it when she drops into some shrubbery. I don’t know if any of this was meant to be funny, but I laughed hard throughout this sequence, even if it includes a bloody homicide committed right next to her at one point, but which she isn’t aware of.
I can’t remember who that was who gets killed in the scene, and it doesn’t matter. Various women will meet their unfortunate end, courtesy of a strangely long knife. More like a staff, it seems to be made of surgical steel and we see the killer assembling it from its components right before each kill. I want to chastise the killer for not arriving at the site prepared as that is just sloppy.
One victim is memorable, but only because the script bothers to toss her a crumb of personality. Federica Mastroianni (niece of the famous Marcello) has the hots for Connelly’s film star father. I can’t help but think that would be uncomfortable, having a roommate who may be thinking amorous thoughts about one of your parents at any given time.
Pleasance is a Scottish etymologist who is assisting police with their investigations into serial killings, using corpse-foraging larvae to determine time of death. His service animal is the aforementioned chimpanzee, which has a peculiar obsession with sharp instruments. “Scalpel-wielding chimp” just begs to be part of a tabloid headline.
He and Connelly quickly bond, as insects like her so much that they do mating calls to woo her. Apparently, she can also see whatever an insect has seen. As Pleasance puts it in an unintentionally gut-bustingly hilarious line: “It’s perfectly normal for insects to be slightly telepathic.” I wanted to ask him for his credentials.
All this leads to a scene unique to cinematic history where she uses a housefly in a box as basically a bloodhound. There’s a good reason why Lassie was a border collie and not a fly. Just imagine if the casting had been the other way around: “What’s that, Buzzy? You say Timmy’s fallen down the old well?” “BZZZZZZZZ!!!”
The photography is beautiful, but then the exteriors are the mountains of Switzerland and the interiors are all in old mansions. The only way a photographer could have failed this assignment would be to leave the lens cap on. One area the film excels in, albeit briefly, is some excellent insect macrophotography.
This film has many flaws, largely because of its inconsistency. Mind you, there’s so many extremely disparate elements that it would be difficult to make a cohesive picture from these. At least there should have been more consistency in the characters themselves, especially Connelly’s. She’s very intelligent and makes good decisions, until she isn’t and she doesn’t. She’s a friend of insects and unafraid of them, until she suddenly starts freaking out over maggots towards the end.
But the worst aspect of this production is the music. Argento’s band Goblin provides an ambient Krautrock score, which is a good fit. Unfortunately, too many scenes are ruined by the inexplicable decision to use contemporary heavy metal. My thoughts on groups like Iron Maiden don’t matter—it is inappropriate use of their music in a scene here that is disappointing.
Which is all a shame, because Phenomena has some individual scenes that work quite well. Perhaps the best sequence is when Connelly is trying to sneak out of a room where she’s being held captive and trying not to wake the captor in the room with her. This is a very effective moment of suspense. Unfortunately, it is a film more often focused on such tangents as the plight of homeless chimpanzees in rural Switzerland, and what happens with they find a straight razor abandoned in a park trash can.
Dir: Dario Argento
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasance
Watched on Arrow UK blu-ray (region B)