GIALLO IDENTIKIT #003 [YELLOW (2012)]

One of the film's clear strengths is its attention to production design, from the design of the killer's memorable (if unexplained) mask, to the staging of the various locations caught on film.

[Note: This is the tenth post in a continuing series discussing and analyzing all the Krimis and Gialli I've seen. As with every post on this site, SPOILERS SHOULD BE EXPECTED. ALSO, SOME IMAGES BELOW ARE AT LEAST VAGUELY NSFW.]

My Giallo Rating: ★★½ (out of 5★)
Subcategory (if any): 
     i. Neo-Giallo
     ii. Meta-Giallo (aka, Experimental Giallo)
In My Giallo Top 50 (Y/N): No (Letterboxd List)


[SOME NEO-GIALLO CONTEXT]

If Luciano Onetti's neo-Giallo SONNO PROFONDO (aka, DEEP SLEEP [2013]) is a case of a short film feeling padded out to approach something that's feature-length, then Ryan Haysom's neo-Giallo YELLOW (2012) feels very much like a 26-minute teaser to a full-length film that does not exist. It is homage at a high level (technically, stylistically), a film whose eerie, droning soundtrack evokes both classic Golden Age Gialli and the best horror movies of the 70s and 80s (esp. those whose soundtracks owe their debt to John Carpenter). It is a film whose visual style is stitched in with panels from the cinematic past (and stitched in, in often pleasing ways). A film that attempts to twist, and tweak, and (yes) make modern the "past trauma" device that drives so many of the most famous Gialli.

But: 

Whether it's a case of being hamstrung by its running time—the difficulty of establishing, developing, and succeeding with some sort of meaningful variation on such well-trod themes, all in 26 minutes or less—or that the short film is, at its core, nothing more than a loving pastiche, it's hard to argue that it is a film that succeeds, even on its own terms. Despite having more visual style (also: nagging dread) than it knows what to do with, the solution to its central mystery is one that can be guessed within the first few minutes of the movie, and the complete lack of dramatic context or appreciable characterization for the story it's telling renders whatever style points it achieves fairly moot.

(And don't get me wrong: I'm not anti-style. I'm not one of those people who will try to make the claim that, say, an Argento or De Palma film deploys style just for style's sake, and never in service of the story. [Or that that would be an unacceptable narrative choice to begin with.] I'm not one of those people, because I don't happen to believe that that argument is true [or even an accurate reading of what's going on in the best films by those directors]. But, in the compressed time [and language] of this short film, the most successful filmmaking technique being used—its style—can't help but feel emptied of that success [imho] by the time the end credits roll.)

Storyboards for a story that still doesn't exist.

[THE STORY, SUCH AS IT IS] 
The first murder is intercut with scenes of the nameless, old-man "hunter" questing along a nameless freeway trying to find the film's serial killer, a black, leather-clad enigma whose yellow crosses and distorted low voice haunts the old man's waking life. What is the relationship between the old man and the killer? Did the old man lose a loved one to the killer's hand? Does he share some innate, unexplainable connection to the man? (And why won't the killer stop calling him at home after each murder?)

   

As he drives, streetlights pulse across the old man's car windshield as he stares, single-minded, with a vision that he hopes will see past the physical world in front of him, and into the mind of the killer. (The driving sequence is repeated a couple times, and reminded me an awful lot of the shots of Barry Nyle driving to the clinic in BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW, that same mix of digitized but 80s-vintage lighting effects whipping across the windshield of the car as the film builds a kind of churning, uneasy tension.)

A tension that returns us to the scene of the first murder:

Though it's probably a coincidence, the killer in Argento's FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET uses a syringe filled with an unidentified blue liquid to dispatch P.I. Gianni Arrosio in a subway bathroom. There's also the sense that the killer is only stunning or paralyzing his victim with this syringe, not unlike the m.o. of the killer in BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA.

After he stuns her, he proceeds to introduce the first serious gore into the movie:

Did you think there wouldn't be eye trauma in a neo-Giallo that's clearly aware of the work of Lucio Fulci? UN CHIEN ANDALOU + Fulci gore = the umpteenth instance of eye trauma in the genre.

There's also a mini dream sequence right after this first murder that could easily exist in a Fulci, wherein the murdered woman writhes in slow motion, gaping at the camera (presumably a dream taking place in the old man's mind as he talks to the killer on the phone.)

[WHAT IT TRIES TO GET UP TO] 
The notable stuff it attempts:

• Obsessive Architecture & Stylized Cameras. As is often the case in the genre, the external architecture that the characters move through is a kind of projected map of their internal psyches, struggles, mysteries. The architecture at times plays as an additional character (or, at least, a felt presence) and seems as important in shaping (or enclosing) the trauma in the movie as anything else. Think the totemic presence of Carlo's house in DEEP RED; Tilde's Bauhaus apartment building in TENEBRAE; the way that the theater in OPERA also serves as a dream gateway to the mysterious, abandoned site of the murders that Betty witnessed as a child; etc.

While chasing down the killer, the camera switches from being attached to the windshield of the old man's car, to the man himself, SnorriCam-like.

•  Playing Games with Identity. At some point, you realize that all three female victims are being played by the same actress. This potentially throws up a lot of associations, everything from the way that Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY literalized the convention of the femme fatale by having Patricia Arquette play both of mystery women in that film (something that is also riffed on in Argento's STENDHAL SYNDROME, when a post-attack Asia Argento first cuts her dark hair severely short [futzing with her gender identification in society—people keep telling her her haircut makes her look like a boy], and then adopting a femme fatale-like blond wig, to further mask or alter her identity).

Or the way that at least two different characters in DRESSED TO KILL look enough alike to be mistaken for the killer (the female police officer sent by Dennis Franz to protect/tail Nancy Allen is mistaken for the presumably female killer—wearing the same dark trench coat, same color and style of hair—who is "herself" actually a male character in drag).

Or the way that shared cast members played different (but often similar) roles across multiple Gialli for the same director. The example that comes to my mind is Nieves Navarro, Claudie Lange, Simón Andreu, et al. in director Luciano Ercoli's two DEATH WALKS films; it is impossible to watch them and not see slivers of an actor's character from one film, creeping in (or, like a splinter, already buried in) the other film.

What a letdown, then, that the movie doesn't develop these kinds of associations within the space of its own narrative. Sure, it had me thinking of all of the above while I watched it, but that's likely because I've spent a lot of time in the genre, and can guess some of the influences probably rattling around in the filmmakers' heads. For somebody who isn't aware of these connections, the reaction to noticing one actress playing three roles—without the movie actually taking up this fact and doing something with it—is one of passing novelty, but (I suspect) not much else. 

•  But Then, You Know, It Gives the Game Away. Both the tagline and large chunks of the limited dialogue telegraph the "twist" ending. I.e., that the lonely old man hunting the sex maniac serial killer *is* that same killer. That some split personality disorder or unexplored childhood terror has allowed him to disassociate from himself completely, splitting him into at least two people. In this context, it feels like an empty revelation. A revelation that is nothing if not wholly expected. Which adds to the overall feeling that the short is a first draft of something that needs to be both longer and more fully realized.

Both the final revelation of the killer's identity, and (according to the filmmakers) a reference to painter Francis Bacon.

One of the filmmakers, when discussing influences for the film, said: "I was really fascinated by how photos and paintings, especially by Gregory Crewdson and Francis Bacon can really distill a lot of sensation, atmosphere and potential story, if you’re looking for it." There's certainly sensation, atmosphere, and potential story achieved here. But, to me at least, as another example of the genre, it still feels frustratingly incomplete.

Leonard Jacobs

October, 2014

[SHOW NOTES]

VERSION WATCHED: The Region 0 PAL DVD | LANGUAGE: English | DIRECTOR: Ryan Haysom  | WRITER(S): Jon Britt, Ryan Haysom | MUSIC: Antoni Maiovvi | CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jon Britt | CAST: Hester Arden (Lead woman); Stephen M. Gilbert (Lead man); Rocco Menzel (Black gloved figure)