(1998/ITALY)(IL FANTASMA DELL’OPERA)

REVIEW BY-Devin Kelly

DIRECTOR: Dario Argento

CAST: Julian Sands, Asia Argento, Andrea Di Stefano, Nadia Rinaldi, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, István Bubik, Lucia Guzzardi, Aldo Massasso, Zoltan Barabas, Gianni Franco, David D’Ingeo, Kitty Kéri, John Pedeferri, Leonardo Treviglio, Massimo Sarchielli, Luis Molteni, Enzo Cardogna, Itala Békés, Claudio Kemones, Csilla Ward, Reka Pozsgay, Fernec Deák B., Rozso Ludvigh, David Drucker, Gábor Harsai, Balázs Tardy, Dénes Ujlaky, Sandor Bese

PRODUCER(s): Giuseppe Colombo, Aron Sipos, Claudio Argento

Medusa Produzione / Reteitalia

RUNNING TIME: 99 min. 24 seconds

DVD SOURCE: VVS Films

Throughout the years, there have been many film variants on the legendary Gaston Leroux classic, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, some traditional and some not so much. From what enters people’s minds as likely their initial vision of The Phantom in the form of an ultra-horrific Lon Chaney from Rupert Julian’s 1925 silent masterpiece, right through to based on the story, but patterned after the times approaches such as Brian De Palma’s fantastic glam conception, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974), the tale is timeless. Leave it however to the undisputed master of the Italian horror film, Dario Argento, to tweak it into a whole different realm entirely. This 1998 Italian/Hungarian co-produced version from Dario and company – IL FANTASMA DELL’OPERA – is the most unique attempt at updating Leroux’s celebrated writings to date, surely not to have gone without criticism from Argento devotees and Phantom traditionalists alike.

The original story is right from the beginning taken in a strangely different direction, as à la Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, The Phantom is abandoned as an infant and set adrift in a wicker basket through the cavern sewers underneath the Paris Opera House. The really bizarre aspect of this whole sequence, adding equally strange characteristics to our central figure, is his subsequent rescue by hordes of concerned and nurturing rats, who save the baby from peril and raise him as one of their own. This early plot development alone is likely to throw off and raise the ire of Phantom and Leroux loyalists, and no doubt an eyebrow or two in the process, but nonetheless is so completely different enough that it can’t help but intrigue and make one wonder where Argento is going with the idea. The problem is however, it’s not nearly touched upon enough.

We move ahead now to Paris, circa 1877. Three stone workers, deep down in the bowels of a remarkable structure – the same magnificent and gargantuan Opera House where our abandoned child now calls home and has grown to become a man (or an adult rat, as suggested in the dialogue) – unleash something seemingly supernatural as one of them chips away with chisel in hand. As a result, their deaths are swift, relentless and bloody. Unfortunately unsuspecting and unaware of possible consequence for their work – the first man finds himself dangling from a safety harness with only the lower half of his torso remaining, the other two soon to follow in his footsteps meeting similar fates. Slaughtered like pigs, the Phantom’s wrath on these unwanted intruders is only the beginning of a statement against the cold-hearted dwellers above his subterranean confines. Above all else though, love will soon motivate the Phantom’s every action. Captivation however, can sometimes easily become obsession.

The soon to be muse for his madness, if you will, is a stunning understudy and opera star hopeful named Christine (Asia Argento) – a drop dead beauty with the voice of an angel. A voice that mesmerizes our Phantom beyond anything he’s ever heard. A voice that incites carnage at the thought of never hearing it again, and even worse, not being able to touch and love the one who possesses it. He must have her and without hesitation after admiring her from the balconies and dark corners of the Opera House, he approaches her, making it known he wants her vocals to be the only ones ever emanating from the architectural behemoth. “Listening to you is sublime…wonderful”, he tells her, stroking her face and staring deep into her eyes upon their first encounter. Another odd and unconventional addition to the original story here is the sudden apparent psychic link between Christine and The Phantom, as he seems to be able to communicate through thought (“You’ll know when we’ll meet again. When you hear my thoughts, you’ll know where to go”). This brings out yet another seemingly otherworldly element in Argento’s version of The Phantom (yet again, with most plot points in the director’s work, it goes basically unexplained). On top of that, to make him almost completely different from those played by Chaney, Claude Rains, or Herbert Lom, the one here played by Sands suffers from no form of disfigurement either. Argento has essentially taken the story and molded it into his own, which can and will be argued as both a good and bad thing.

Aside from all of this, we’ve got some very unusual filler going on as sub-plots, one of which adds a little too much comic relief in my opinion, in the form of a grimy exterminator and his rat hunting machine (helmed by a hyper active dwarf no less!). Ignace, the Rat Catcher (Istvàn Bubik) I guess is Dario’s answer here to The Phantom’s opposite, who prior to dispatching one poor soul by impalement, proclaims, “I’m not a Phantom, I’m a rat”. Even more twisted is the machine on which Ignace and his assistant travel through the catacombs, complete with vermin vacuum and other assorted contraptions of the like. More entertaining though is the mid-hunt destruction of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not evoking machine and the moist midget beheading that follows.

As for the performances and technical aspects of IL FANTASMA DELL’OPERA, there are, as with anything, high and low points. As much as it is obvious that Asia Argento is a completely gorgeous lady and without question gazed at and admired probably by both men and women, her performance as Christine is at times overwrought and slightly heavy on the dramatics, namely during the climax. The gut-wrenching screams for her Phantom lover feel as though they’re laid on a touch too thick for a script that just doesn’t seem to kindle the deep, undying and tragic romance we should be weeping for at the film’s conclusion. In fact, more fervor, eroticism and kinship is felt during the peculiarly uncomfortable moments in which Sands rubs his body with and unbuckles his pants for one of his fellow furry friends. Asia’s scenes in which she performs onstage vocally feel somewhat awkward as well, likely more to do with the dubbing and less her actual delivery. With that being said, she still does manage to keep us watching her every move and is not entirely terrible to be fair. She’s certainly matured from her earlier days in Italian horror pictures like DEMONS 2 (1986) (DEMONI 2…L’INCUBO RITORNA) and THE CHURCH (1989) (LA CHIESA) and has gone on to higher acclaim through films such as SCARLET DIVA (2000), Romero’s LAND OF THE DEAD (2005) and more recently her father’s return to the Three Mothers trilogy, MOTHER OF TEARS (2007) (LA TERZA MADRE).

Julian Sands, the English born actor who at times can look like he’s possessed by the most evil of entities and a screen veteran who got his start in the early eighties, is perfectly fitting for the title role. Although as mentioned, he bears no form of scarring or facial trauma as is usual when one thinks of The Phantom of the Opera, the brooding menace of the actor’s expressions still bring forth a real sense of the macabre. Sands is always likely to be most remembered for the leading role that brought him partially to the forefront – the 1990 mainstream horror film from FRIDAY THE 13^TH series alumni Steve Miner, WARLOCK – but should be noted as a very capable and believable performer in anything that is put in front of him. As the Phantom, he stalks unflinchingly, dishing out some brutal ends to several unimportant characters as though he’d done it a million times before (such as the casual way in which he rips out one poor woman’s tongue with his teeth). This was not just some foreign horror project for Sands either. As mentioned in his commentary located as a bonus supplement on this particular disc, he had previously admired Argento and was eager and honored to work with him, and throughout the majority of IL FANTASMA DELL’OPERA, it shows. One interesting tidbit of information I came across lists John Malkovich as being the one Argento first intended the part for, although from my perspective, I don’t think he would have brought out the stone-faced menace of the character the way Sands did.

The cinematography here courtesy of Oscar winning English DP Ronnie Taylor is absolutely stellar. Of course it didn’t hurt matters that some of the Hungarian locations – most notably and especially the completely fabulous and amazing Opera House – were beyond awe-inspiring. This would be the second of three occasions Taylor was selected by Argento – the first being OPERA (1987) and most recently, Argento’s comeback film following IL FANTASMA DELL’OPERA, his 2001 picture, NON HO SONNO (SLEEPLESS). Here he captures every nook and crevice of the glorious Opera House and it’s dank, dungeon-like corridors below. Above all else, the cinematography is the top star here without question. An Ennio Morricone score never hurts either, and in place of the electric pounding of Argento’s previous Goblin collaborations of earlier films, the sounds of a Morricone piece resonate as enchanting as expected. 

When it comes down to the final word, I won’t dispute the often stated assessment that this is certainly not Dario Argento's crowning moment. In actuality, it would be impossible to agree upon what exactly would be that moment for a director who's had so very many during his influential career of nearly four decades. However, I will not debate that this is not it. Not to say IL FANTASMA DELL'OPERA is not a great achievement in it's own right. It's just got an overall aura of somehow feeling removed from a large chunk of the director's previous and even current work. You could even say that the film stands alone as an experiemental project for Dario. Whether it works or not is up to each individual viewer in the end. I would definitely say it's worth the watch to find out and is a film that sticks out as a different kind of horror offering from a highly respected artist during a transitional phase in his storied filmography.

The VVS disc features what appears to be an edited interview with Julian Sands, who talks briefly about the film and Argento, behind the scenes stuff, two trailers for the film (theatrical and video), as well as a photo gallery and filmographies as extras.

STORY: 2.5/5 BITCH SLAPS

PICTURE: 4/5 BITCH SLAPS

AUDIO: 4.5/5 BITCH SLAPS

EXTRAS: 3.5/5 BITCH SLAPS

OVERALL FILM: 3/5 BITCH SLAPS

2008 @ Cinema Nocturna