THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS: Twitter and Review Round Up!

The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears is not a movie that can be easily explained. There have been both awestruck and overwhelmed reactions to the film--not surprising considering its over-the-top visuals and Last Year At Marienbad-style "narrative."

Here's a sampling of what folks have been saying on Twitter as well as choice quotes from some of our favorite reviews of the film.

"You have absolutely never seen anything like The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears."

--Anton Sirius, Ain't It Cool

"It's tempting to reference Strange Colour as a sort of neo-giallo, a term applied frequently to its predecessor. But it's not, really. It's something else, a strange new language that uses those familiar elements as their base while going off in some other direction."

--Todd Brown, Twitchfilm

"Lengthy passages are unrelated to any discernible narrative, and seem to exist in that interzone your mind travels through just before it goes to sleep. You may be familiar – it’s often the time when your leg twitches, heart skips a beat and you slam open your eyes again."

--Jordan Hoffman, Film.com

"The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, a visual masterpiece that will confuse, confound, and hypnotize you as it’s one of the most visually extravagant explorations of the gaudy and grotesque ever committed to film . . . if you give into its lusty charms, you won’t be disappointed in its endless delights, surpassing the intensity of many titles it owes its existence to."

Nicholas Bell, Ion Cinema

 

"Cattet and Forzani treat the camera like a murder weapon, slashing it across rooms, penetrating characters' eyeballs in extreme close-ups, emphasizing the garish color schemes, and obscuring conversations with multiple split screens. They're not telling a story so much as transmitting hallucinations."

--Matt Barone, Complex Mag

"I don't think I can win here. I looooooooove The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears. Love. I'm in love, you guys. I'm not fucking around. I think it's one of the best horror movies I've ever seen."

--Travis Lee Bean, Film Colossus

For those of you planning to attend Austin's Fantastic Fest, there is great news! The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears will be screening there this year.

FINAL SCREENING: The Strange Colour Of Your Body's Tears!

Wake up, sleepy head!

Pull on your black leather driving gloves, get your eye make-up just right and hurry over to the Scotiabank because today is the final screening of The Strange Colour Of Your Body's Tears!

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS Screening Times:

Saturday, Sept 14th, 12:30 PM SCOTIABANK 8

Five Questions for Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS)

Lucky us! We managed to get Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, the directors of The Strange Colours of Your Body's Tears, to answer five questions for the Vanguard Blog.Their Giallo-inspired film is playing at the Festival this year.

1. There are many different definitions of Giallo, but how would you define Giallo?

Incredible music, incredible settings, incredible murders! An extraordinary mix between sex and death which put the viewer in a strange position, lost in a game with his point of view!  

2. What are your favorite experimental films?

Meshes of the Afternoon  by Maya Deren, Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger, Nightshots by Stephen Dwoskin, Un chant d'amour by Jean Genet, The Sex of Self-Hatred by Solomon Nagler, The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man by Aryan Kaganoff, The Big Shave by Martin Scorsese, Mamori by Karl Lemieux. 

 

3. What film(s) do you consider an influence on your work that people might find surprising?

Certified Copy by Abbas Kiarostami.

4. Since Giallo influenced slasher films, is there one specific slasher film that you think lives up to its Giallo influences?

If we consider Brian de Palma's Dressed To Kill as a slasher, it is the one! If not, there are some bit and pieces of giallo in the beginning of The Burning, or in movies as Ripper: Letter From Hell and Tuno negro.

5. What is the one piece of advice you would give to emerging filmmakers?

Work, work, and work.

Now that's you've researched all the movies mentioned in this post, you can get your tickets for a screening of The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, which is playing this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

Thanks to these talented and clearly very busy filmmakers for taking the time to chat with us! 

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS Screening Times:

Wednesday, Sept 11th, 6:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

Thursday, Sept 12th, 9:30 PM SCOTIABANK 3

Saturday, Sept 14th, 12:30 PM SCOTIABANK 8

Director Profile: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS)

Not content to remain merely inspired by the giallo films of the 1960s and '70s, filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani seem determined to reinvent giallo as its own genre. The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears is their latest foray into feature film and it is screening as part of the Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard Programme.

Cattet and Forzani made several short films on a miniscule budget before their feature debut, Amer, in 2009. These short films speak in a commanding language despite containing little to no dialogue.

2002's Chambre Jaune was awarded Best International Fantastic Short Film at Sitges and also screened at Montreal's Fantasia Festival, eventually appearing on Synapse Films' Small Gauge Trauma: Vol. 1,  a 2006 compilation of Fantasia short films.

L'Etrange Portrait De Le Dame En Jaune, from 2004, won The Cult Film Archive Award at the 2006 Kinofilm in Manchester as well as Best Short Film at Spain's Festival de Terror de Molins del Rei in 2005.

In 2009, Cattet and Forzani released Amer, which examined three different phases in its female protagonists's life--childhood, adolescence, and adulthood--all marked by sensual discovery and visceral unease.

In an interview with Australia's Desktop, the duo reveals that Amer was not only shot in 39 days, but also that they "tested all the storyboards with a DV-cam and tested all the camera settings before the shoot." Additionally, they note, "we shot the total film with the two of us acting all the characters" before the actors eventually came on board. The result was 900 shots and 2,200 cuts, which is astonishing considering their limited funding.

2012's The ABCs of Death boasts a segment from Cattet and Forzani, the exquisite "O is For Orgasm." Like their previous work, it shows Cattet and Forzani continuing to explore and expand the same visual and sonic hallmarks of their previous works: garish colors, deep shadows, experimental mise en scene, and re-recorded and non-diegetic sound.

For The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, screening at this year's Toronto International Film Festival Vanguard Programme, Cattet and Forzani adopted a slightly more narrative approach, described on the AnonymesFilms website as such: "A woman vanishes. Her husband inquires into the strange circumstances of her disappearance. Did she leave him? Is she dead? As he goes along searching, he plunges into a world of nightmare and violence . . . " 

With Cattet and Forzani behind the cameras, one can expect more sumptuous, provocative images, but no doubt there will be surprises, too.

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS Screening Times:

Wednesday, Sept 11th, 6:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

Thursday, Sept 12th, 9:30 PM SCOTIABANK 3

Saturday, Sept 14th, 12:30 PM SCOTIABANK 8

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS: What's In The Soundtrack?

Today is a great day. Why? It's Italian film legend Dario Argento's birthday, for one. It also is the same day that you'll get to find out about the soundtrack for The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, one of the films at the Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard Programme.

One of the coolest things about Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's new film is that they use a lot of well-known Italian soundtrack music. What's even cooler is that they listen to this music when they're writing, so having it in the movie is just an extension of their unique vision.

Here is some of the music from the soundtrack to The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears and background about the composers and the original films in which the music appeared.

Composer Ennio Morricone probably needs no introduction, as his career is nothing short of legendary, but here's a few titles to chew on: Once Upon a Time in the West, For a Few Dollars More, La Cage Aux Folles, Revolver, The Battle of Algiers, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (directed by Dario Argento! Happy Birthday!), The Thing, and The Mission.

There are a couple of Morricone pieces on the soundtrack to The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears as well. From the wonderfully titled Lacorta notte delle bambole di vetro a.k.a. The Short Night of the Glass Dolls, his chilling "Il bisturi" is not the kind of music you'd want to wake up to in the middle of the night, especially if you have glass dolls in your room.

"Erotico Mistico" pretty much sounds exactly like what you'd think from the title: drumbeats, Gregorian chant-like singing, and lots of breathy sighing. It's from the 1971 film Maddalena, which tells the story of what happens when a lonely lady meets a lusty priest.

Another imaginatively titled giallo, All The Colours of the Dark, stars the stunning Edwige Fenech (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) and the not-too-shabby-himself Ivan Rassimov. Bruno Nicolai's score includes "Magico incontro."

                       

Nicolai, who was a friend of Morricone and composed many scores with him, also provided music for Jess Franco films like Count Dracula and Marquis de Sade: Justine as well as 1979's Caligula. Yes, that Caligula.

Wikipedia claims that Guido and Maurizio de Angelis were some of the most prolific Italian musicians in the 1970s, and a glance at their profile on Discogs bears this out. In fact, they even had to use an alternate name "to avoid over-saturating the market." This alternate name was Oliver Onions (I couldn't even make up something this good. Under this moniker, they composed the insanely catchy "Zorro Is Back" theme from the 1975 film version with Alain Delon!)

Here is "Il racket (riprese 1)" from the soundtrack to 1976's Il grande racket, directed by Italian cult film legend Enzo G. Castellari and starring another Italian cult film legend, the awesome Fabio Testi.

Riz Ortolani, who was a jazz composer in the 1950s, was also popular back in the day for his scores for films like House on the Edge of the Park and Cannibal Holocaust, both from 1980. "Cosi Dolce . . . Cosi Perversa" ("So sweet . . . so perverse") is the title theme from the 1967 Umberto Lenzi movie of the same name, starring such legends as Carroll Baker and Jean-Louis Trintignant. Hot!

In 1970, there was an Italian/German film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray called Il Dio Chiatomo, directed by Massimo Dallamano, who lensed A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More. Carlo Pes and Giuseppe de Luca composed the score, including "Rito a Los Angeles," which borrows the guitar riff from Iron Butterfly's "In a Gadda Da Vida" but adds terrific drums. (It was later used in the soundtrack to Ocean's Twelve.)

 

Nico Fidenco's "My Boundless" originally appeared in Confessions of Emanuelle from 1977 (not to be confused with the other Emmanuelle, who was French). Jonathan Ruskin's synopsis on IMDB is classic:

Famous undercover journalist Emanuelle teams with her friend Cora Norman to uncover a white slave ring that traffics in women kidnapped from various locales around the world. Her investigations leave plenty of time, however, for globe-trotting and bed-hopping. As each lead turns up bad, Emanuelle begins to wonder if she can ever put an end to this horrible slavery ring. 

Won't it be fun to look for this music in The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears? I think so, anyway! Be sure not to miss the film when it screens at the Festival.

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS Screening Times:

Wednesday, Sept 11th, 6:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

Thursday, Sept 12th, 9:30 PM SCOTIABANK 3

Saturday, Sept 14th, 12:30 PM SCOTIABANK 8

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO: Giallo Playlist

Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio focuses not only on the love of a particular genre, giallo, but on a love for that genre's particular relationship with sound.  Gialli not only have viscerally powerful sound effects making even looking away no guarantee that a murder won't be deeply affecting, they also have a long tradition of ennervated, groovy, dynamic and even experimental soundtracks. Here's a playlist to get you in the giallo mood.

"Piume Di Cristallo" from Ennio Morricone's score for Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage/ L'Uccello Piume di Cristalli (1969).




"Sabba" from Bruno Nicolai soundtrack for Sergio Martino's Tutti I Colori di Buio / All the Colors of the Dark (1972)


Berto Pisano's funk-inflected opening theme for Andrea Bianchi's Strip Nude for your Killer / Nude per l'Assassino (1975).


Progressive rock band Goblin is probably best known for their soundtrack to Argento's Suspiria, but they got their start providing the tense synth mixed with classic Gothic organ soundtrack for Argento's Deep Red / Profundo Rosso (1975).


UK band Broadcast provides the soundtack for Berberian Sound Studio despite the untimely death of  band member, Trish Keenan. Broadcast completed the soundtrack using vocals Keenan had recorded before her death. I couldn't find any singles from it, but here's one of their earlier songs, "Paper Cuts."



Our friends at The Deuce have more suggestions for giallo soundtrack listening.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO screens one more time: 
Tues., Sept. 11, 2:45PM CINEPLEX YONGE AND DUNDAS

Happy Birthday, Dario Argento!

Dario Argento prepares to cut the cake.

Today's Dario Argento's Birthday! Argento is an innovator in horror and a master of the Italian giallo genre.

He's also an alumnus of the Toronto International Film Festival, having shown: Mother of Tears (2007), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996),  Trauma (1993);  Two Evil Eyes (1990), co-directed with George Romero; Opera (1989). In fact, after director Takashi Miike, Argento's shown the most films at Midnight Madness.




His most famous films include Suspiria; The Bird With The Crystal Plumage; and Deep Red. More recently he's had two episodes of Masters of Horror, ("Jenifer" and "Pelts"); Giallo starring Adrien Brody, and his newest film is Dracula 3D with Rutger Hauer as the Count.

Happy Birthday, Maestro!

And you can celebrate by watching two movies that are definitely influenced by Argento's legacy.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO Screening Times:
Mon., Sept. 10th, 6:00 PM BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Tue., Sept. 11th, 2:45 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 3

LORDS OF SALEM
Mon., Sept. 10, 11:59pm: RYERSON
Wed., Sept. 12, 5pm: CINEPLEX YONGE AND DUNDAS 6

The Guardian Interviews BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO Director Peter Strickland

The Guardian profiles Berberian Sound Studio director Peter Strickland. Strickland talks about 1970s England (Dorking, in particular), Toby Jones, giallo cinema and the power of sound in film.

But while 70s Britain was glued to Dad's Army, in Italy directors such as Dario Argento were turning out the floridly stylised gialli whose zealous attention to music and costume Strickland would later relish. His own film is a riot of sly references to the underground cinema and music he admits being obsessed by (the title alludes to avant-garde singer Cathy Berberian). Yet despite what Strickland himself calls the "trainspotting", his story pushes in unexpected directions. With nods to the trials of freelance employment and workplace bullying, this oddball horror-art movie has a firmer grasp of working life than many sober slices of social realism.

Click through for more.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO screening times:
Mon., Sept. 10, 6:00PM:  The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
Tues., Sept. 11, 2:45:  Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 3

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO: What's a "giallo"?

In Berberian Sound Studio, Toby Jones plays the part of a meek English sound engineer who is in Italy working on the sound mix for a "giallo" film. For those not familiar with this genre, I thought I'd provide a little background.

Example of a "giallo" paperback novel

"Giallo" is the Italian word for yellow and refers to a series of cheap paperbook mystery novels with yellow covers that were popular reading from the 1930s onward. Though the books were often in the vein of Agathie Christie or Ellery Queen, when filmmakers began adapting them in the 1960s, they soon added their own very distinct touches, taking the films into territory more associated today with the horror and slasher genres.

Poster for Dario Argento's The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

Directors like Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Sergio Martino made dozens of these films, rather quickly and cheaply, during the 60s and 70s. They were often filled with operatic levels of violence, not to mention liberal amounts of nudity and sex.

Poster from Sergio Martino's All the Colours of the Dark (1972)

Though best known for their often-garish visual style, giallo films were also innovative in their use of music and sound, which is where our poor sound engineer comes in. Many of the plots were based on madness and psychological horror, and the sound design was integral to setting the right mood.

Poster from Andrea Bianchi's Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

In fact, many of these films were shot completely without sync sound, so everything from dialogue to foley effects was recorded later in a studio, perhaps somewhere like Berberian Sound Studio.

p.s. You might notice a certain similarity in the posters I've included. A (presumably male) hand poised over a woman in peril. These films were nothing if not formulaic, but they've been a huge influence on succeeding generations of trashy thrillers.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO screening times:

Mon., Sept. 10, 6PM:  THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Tues., Sept. 11, 2:45PM  CINEPLEX YONGE AND DUNDAS