среда, 15. август 2012.

Dario Argento's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (2000)

**
2-

            Sajt Ain't It Cool News pratim od svojih prvih koraka u kiberprostoru, dakle već skoro punih 15 godina. Ala vreme leti! Eeehhhhh, ja sam sada možda samo ishlapjeli starac, ali ipak poslušajte moju priču iz praistorije internet prostora... Možda iz nje nešto naučite.
U ranim danima tog sajtačak sam mu i doprineo sa par svojih rivjua. Drugi koji su mi objavili bio je vezan za jedan nebitni čileanski (!) slešer, ali prvi i daleko poznatiji naslov koji sam ekskluzivno prikazao američkom narodu i ostatku sveta bio je – Arđentov abortus od "modernizacije" klasičnog FANTOMA OPERE.  
            (Inače, nekako u to isto vreme još jedan Srbin je harao AICN sajtom, istina isključivo na njegovom forumu tj. među komentatorima: naime, Dimbo Vojnov je tada, pod nickom "dima", iako u barely legal dobu, već uveliko branio boje srbstva svojim klinačkim rasističkim i ksenofobičnim ispadima u kojima je denuncirao jevrejske zavere i muslimanske zločine i uopšte antisrpski slant na filmu a i šire. Bilo je tu zaista sjajnih bisera koje ću u nekom trenutku dokonosti morati da iskopam, ako nisu u međuvremenu obrisani...)
Ovih dana, dok čekamo italijansku premijeru najnovijeg Arđentovog doticanja DNA života (i filma), odnosno 3D DRAKULU, prisetio sam se njegovog prethodnog skrnavljenja gotskog horora – kao i svog rivjua iz vremena srpske bioskopske distribucije. Budući da je FANTOM prikazan kod nas pre Amerike (gde je, zapravo, nešto kasnije otišao pravo na DVD ako se ne varam), ovo je za AICN bio prilično ekskluzivan rivju, pa je kao takav tamo i objavljen.
Da se ne lažemo, ja sam uveren da ćemo, kad najzad pogledamo njegovog već opštepopljuvanog i ismejanog DRAKULU, ovog skrnavog FANTOMA od blata da pravimo i prizivamo kao nedostižnu klasiku i nivo filmmejkinga koji Arđento nikada više neće da dosegne!
Evo kako su me najavili, i šta sam pre tuceta godina napisao o dotad najgorem Arđentu (nesvestan da će u deceniji koja predstoji ovaj nekad sjajan autor potonuti još mnogo niže)... 


A report from a Yugoslavia screening of Dario Argento's IL FANTASMA DELL' OPERA
Published at:  Feb 11, 2000 1:04:34 PM CST  

This is what makes the Web so Cooooool. Today Father Geek wakes up and there's a story straight from war torn Yugoslavia about a screening of a Horror story by one of the great directors in the genre. What a wakeup call...


Hi there!
I've been your regular reader for the past 3 years, but since I live in the most isolated country there is (Yugoslavia, what else?) I was not in position to snoop anything of interest to you. Actually, most of the time I had to fight to stay alive and, well, sane...
Now, I may be wrong, but I think that Dario Argento's latest hasn't yet been released over there or it's only direct to video, or sth. So, if you haven't seen his PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, I guess some of your readers would like to know what's it like.
Unfortunately, my first contribution to your site is not a praise of a great film. LA FANTASMA DELLA OPERA is just a moderately interesting horror flick that might have a few interesting things in it for horror fans, and it is worth seeing , but Argento fans will certainly be disappointed.
The way I see it, this classic story can be made in only two ways to be great: either as a serious gothic melodrama with good characters and stress on the Romantic/Gothic element, or as a baroque visual rollercoaster in the vein of Tim Burton. Argento appears to have chosen it to tell a story about the seductiveness of the Dark, Evil, etc. and in this respect it IS interesting and slightly inovative. BUT, it is almost spoiled by many misguided and/or totally unnecessary elements: silly 'characters' being dispatched in mostly banal and too brief ways (sometimes you can't even be sure WHAT exactly happened) and none of the murders come even close to the elaborate set-pieces we're used to in Argento's major works.OK, there is some gore, but the clumsy way it's handled, it reminded me of Fulci's later works. 
Some stuff is both silly and gruesome, and I guess the the tongue being bitten off will probably be cut in the USA. Also, there's totally needless and pointless nudity and sex, both in the scenes when Asia Argento and Julian Sands (the Phantom) 'do it' and in another one (that might also be cut or trimmed in the USA) that takes place in a brothel, with surprising full-frontals by women (one of them enormously fat), girls, men, boys, etc. There are also many other instances of totally misplaced grotesqueness that simply doesn't work here (for ex. when an ugly rat-catcher constructs a special vehicle for catching rats and rides with it through the subterranean Phantom's kingdom...)
In this version the Phantom does not wear a mask, and is not disfigured (Julian Sands is pretty creepy in this role, with long blond hair and a spectacular black cloak). Also, he telepactically communicates with his chosen beauty, who readily obeys. A strange divergence from the original is in the fact that the Diva, Christina's opponent (and in no other version as repulsive as here) doesn't die: she gets her enormous bossom scratched, and is later hit in the head, but is NOT killed, whereas the Phantom -should I reveal it?- is killed by an extra (a cop)...
 All in all, this is another disappointment from Argento.
If you use this, call me...
Dr Benway


            Ovaj članak u originalu možete videti OVDE.
            Ja sam gore samo neznatno sredio par manjih grešaka, inače – to je to: moj prvi rivju na engleskom objavljen na World Wide Webu!
            Inače, ovaj krš je trebalo delom da se snima u Srbiji pa su onda, maltene u zadnji čas, otišli da to otaljaju u Budimpešti. Zatim se govorkalo da Arđento svoj naredni film želi da snima kod nas, i tu je bilo nekih koraka u tom pravcu, ali iz meni neznanih razloga – i oni su propali. Verovatno je i bolje tako: imajući u vidu o kakvim katastrofama se radi, sad bar niko ne može čak ni izokola Srbiju da krivi za njihovu propast na svim zamislivim nivoima.