Dario Argento's films are not thrillers, never horror, they're locked/liberated in visionary architectures that ignore everything that does not belong to their own reality. Dario Argento is maybe the last "fellinian" in the italian cinema, the only one who's capable of creating visionary universes, independent and totally abstract, following their own rhythms, erasing everything else but the obscure, autistic fantasy of their author. That's why his movies, and especially his last movies, are probably misunderstood by people - they are probably too visionary, too deep down in the depths of the director's obsessions, too abstract and sublime to find the critic's approval. When you watch a Dario Argento movie you have to remember the artificious naivety of a perception that recognizes only its light. You have to accept the poetical world of an author who plays with the shadows of his soul creating characters that are made only of anguish and life. And death. Reality is somewhere else, it belongs to another universe, it reveals to other eyes. So, the Phantom of the Opera: a romantic (melo)drama dedicated to a shadow that has never met the sun, the film is totally locked into itself, trapped in the artificial world of the Opera, whipped by passion, possession, addiction, liberation. The outside world is excluded: we see it only once, Paris's roofs floating in the thin air, a lyrical space of a fantasy (that's why it's emphasized), Argento is christening a world that doesn't - can't - know his reality. The whole movie gets deliriously sublime and genuinely lyrical as it gets farther away from reality, announcing life/death in the end, stretching itself into nothingness until the last painfully beautiful image of Christine Daaè/Asia Agento's face, running, her back towards the light (salvation), while her face still facing the shadows, the darkness, the inside. Like Burroughs said "real directors are those who can create a universe in which they've lived or they'd love to live". So, ironically Argento today is the only possible hypothesis of "politically useful" cinema. I hope that Dario Argento, Asia Argento and Claudio Argento will keep delivering us these precious gems for a long, long time.
Review of The Phantom of the Opera
