There are a number of so-called "proto-Gialli" out there. Sometimes they are films that, though maybe not explicitly referenced in the later genre, still carry a strong, shared sense of mood, atmosphere, narrative shape, mechanics of plot, etc. (something like Luchino Visconti's OSSESSIONE perhaps). Others are stated influences: Argento acknowledging the influence of, e.g., Michelangelo Antonioni's body of work, which can be seen in the way that David Hemmings in DEEP RED makes for a very clear arrow pointing back to David Hemmings in BLOW-UP; or, the way that BLOW-UP's obsession with the inability to truly see what's in front of you (in Hemmings' study of the photos, whose captured image he can't decipher) shares thematic kinship with Hemmings being unable, for the duration of DEEP RED, to recognize what was right in front of *his* face, there in Helga Ulmann's apartment.
The connection between Roman Polanski's REPULSION (1965) and Francesco Barilli's THE PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK (1974) falls into the second category. In interviews Barilli has mentioned the influence of films like ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) on the plot of PERFUME, and the influence of Polanski's REPULSION can be seen in the key repetition of a prop.
In REPULSION, the film ends when Catherine Deneuve's sister returns home to their shared apartment, to find the aftermath of her sister's mental implosion. After the camera has shown us the human reactions to what gets found in the apartment, it abandons the bodies of those moving about in the crime scene and begins to prowl along the floor. In this crawl we get a series of closeups on abandoned and broken objects (in this way, you could argue that Argento's various uses of macrophotography to capture totemic objects key to his mysteries perhaps finds it cinematic precursor here). The camera comes to rest on a photograph, showing a childhood Deneuve staring severely at a man (presumably her father). The camera closes in on the image, giving the audience ample time to guess that her character's repulsion by sex has its origins in a traumatic childhood experience, perhaps perpetrated by this man.
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| The camera zooming into the photo until the photo, as an image, loses coherence and becomes abstract gradations of black, white, and gray also feels like it looks forward to the same technique in BLOW-UP. Also the way that this technique in Argento's OPERA reminds one (me at least) of the same technique used at the end of Bergman's PASSION OF ANNA (the connection is made, via screenshots, here). The closeup on the photo above eventually dissolves into black, and the roll of the end credits. |
In Barilli's PERFUME, a very similar photo first appears in the opening credits, showing Mimsy Farmer's character as a child, posed with (presumably) her mother and father.
The child in the photo (as in REPULSION) has a stark, intense look on her face, a stark, intense look aimed at the man in the photo. As the movie proceeds, the importance of photos (both this one, and other childhood photos with her mother and "father") recur:
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| Farmer's character is confused to find the photo from the credits on the floor of her bedroom, its glass smashed. |
After this, we get a sequence that shows Farmer at a table in her apartment, repeatedly cutting out the head of her "father" in a different family photo (the fact that the man filling the father role is someone different here relates directly to the plot, and the hidden trauma that Farmer's character experienced as a child):
Unlike REPULSION, which leaves us to intuit the significance of the circumstances surrounding the photo (by stranding us at the photo, as the last image of the film), PERFUME eventually gives us an entire flashback tied up with the photographs here, and allows us to know, at least in broad strokes, the story behind (and reason for) Farmer's mental deterioration.
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