Dario Argento
DV1
R4 DVD
In
1977 the face of horror changed forever. Dario Argento directed the film
“Suspiria” which is seen by many as the very best horror film of all time. A
dizzying collage of images, sound and colour, it had immense style, a powerful
presence and a superb score. It is still a best seller on DVD today. Argento
planned Suspiria as the first of a series of three films known as the Three
Mothers Trilogy. Each of the mothers are powerful witches who control doorways
to the netherworld. In 1980 Argento released the second in the series
“Inferno”, while perhaps not as well received as the first, it is still
considered a significant horror film and is quite an experience.
Argento’s
work has had many problems in Australia. For cinema lovers too often his films
have been badly edited for release and at times nearly cut to pieces due to the
intrusion of censors. In 2009 complete versions of his major films are now
available, many in collections from Umbrella Entertainment. Argento has made a
lot of films between 1980 and now, many have been close to potboilers, others
have been more successful. Now, some 27 years later, Argento offers us the
third film in the series, Mother of Tears starring Asia Argento. In this very
modern continuation of the tale only one of the great witches remain, Mater
Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears and this is her story.
An
ancient urn contained three small statues and a knife is unearthed in a church
cemetery in Rome covered in strange icons and symbols. A priest terrified of
its possible occult links sends it to a museum for deciphering. When the urn is
opened a Pandora’s Box of hysteria and madness is released. The darkness
spreads over Rome causing riots and uncontrolled violence. While Sarah and
Giselle work on the urn, they are attacked by three demons and a monkey who
split open Giselle’s face and strangle her with her intestines!
While
Sarah does not want to believe what she saw, she soon realizes she is now their
target. As she begins to hear voices, have visions and her boyfriend’s son is
kidnapped she starts to realise the power of this strange cult. As she
investigates the cult she meets a strange priest (played by Udo Kier) who explains
the death of the first two powerful witches (in Suspiria and Inferno) and tells
her about the remaining witch, Mother Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears, who is
the most terrible and powerful of the three.
As
the goth followers of the Third Mother gather, Sarah must evade the police (who
believe she had a role in the death of Giselle) and use her own psychic powers
to defeat the great witch.
While
Mother of Tears is not in the same class as Suspiria or Inferno it does have a
style of its own. The story is continued through references to the first two
films so you appreciate the context of the continuing tale and there is
Argento’s trademark surreal use of violence and imagery. Certainly the violence
and gore is higher than in his earlier films, at times the sheer audacity of
the splatter takes it to the level of an artform. The acting is certainly solid
Asia Argento is excellent and Udo Kier as a strange priest is endearing (as one
would expect, he has never has a dull role). The score by Claudio Simonetti is nicely
atmospheric.
There
is much debate about the effectiveness of Mother of Tears, it is hard to judge
it objectively since Suspiria is still considered the best horror film of all
time. If, however, we try and look at it in isolation, Mother of Tears is
visually appealing, dark, overwhelming and beautiful. Certainly Mater
Lachrymarum is very different from the first two witches, who were older and
more crone like. In this film we have more of a younger, sexier and certainly
more naked witch but she is just as monstrous even if her goth like followers
give us a bit of culture-shock.
Mother
of Tears does have it problems; some of the CGI is a bit sloppy. However, being
fair, this is a film that clearly doesn’t have the budget that Suspiria had and
certainly cannot match the budget of mass market Hollywood titles. What it may
lack in finesse it certainly makes up for in creativity and sheer style.
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This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and
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