OPERA is the beginning of the end of the once great Dario Argento. His earlier films, like BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, DEEP RED, SUSPIRIA or TENEBRE, were filled with amazing cinematic moments stringed together with stories that looked or felt right. In OPERA, the whole film is a near total mess. OPERA *really* feels and looks like the first rough cut of a movie. The succession of scenes simply don't gel together. It's just a succession of half-hazardly directed scenes, most of them filmed with a steadycam, strung together with no semblance of a story or logic.
Specific moments, like the scene where the seamstress is attacked, are hilarious and remarkably clunky. Argento of the 1970s would have made that scene so spectacular but as is now, with the gold chain falling in the mouth of the seamstress and the killer trying to get it because the chain entered her throat, even though the woman was simply incapable of doing this, made my eyes roll. In fact, there was so much eye rolling when I watched this movie that's it's pointless to write a fantastically elaborate critique when Dario didn't even bother coming up with anything but a sloppy movie.
When the crows start flying in the theater, the movie suddenly becomes The Birds (it's obvious by now that Dario really loves Hitchcock' s The Birds, which is one of my favorite movies ever), with POW shots of the crows flying over the audience and then the crows start attacking the police officer who, in turn, starts shooting the crows, accidently killing people all around. This is where & when I lost it.
Many of the actors in OPERA are actually good. The lead actress is pretty good. But the problem is that the script is so beyond anything resembling reality that it must have been difficult for her to muster any motivation for her character. Her only weakness was during the singing scenes on stage. Her incapability to lipsynch made the unconvincing proceedings even less convincing. What happened to Dario anyway?
Specific moments, like the scene where the seamstress is attacked, are hilarious and remarkably clunky. Argento of the 1970s would have made that scene so spectacular but as is now, with the gold chain falling in the mouth of the seamstress and the killer trying to get it because the chain entered her throat, even though the woman was simply incapable of doing this, made my eyes roll. In fact, there was so much eye rolling when I watched this movie that's it's pointless to write a fantastically elaborate critique when Dario didn't even bother coming up with anything but a sloppy movie.
When the crows start flying in the theater, the movie suddenly becomes The Birds (it's obvious by now that Dario really loves Hitchcock' s The Birds, which is one of my favorite movies ever), with POW shots of the crows flying over the audience and then the crows start attacking the police officer who, in turn, starts shooting the crows, accidently killing people all around. This is where & when I lost it.
Many of the actors in OPERA are actually good. The lead actress is pretty good. But the problem is that the script is so beyond anything resembling reality that it must have been difficult for her to muster any motivation for her character. Her only weakness was during the singing scenes on stage. Her incapability to lipsynch made the unconvincing proceedings even less convincing. What happened to Dario anyway?