**
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
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.