Asia Argento

  • La terza madre [Mother of Tears] (2007)

    La terza madre [Mother of Tears] (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2021) It’s hardly controversial to state that not all of Dario Argento’s films are created equal, and that his early films are better-crafted than the ones made after (roughly) 1990. It does Mother of Tears no favours whatsoever that it sets itself up as the concluding instalment of a series launched by nothing less than Suspiria (a giallo that even a slasher-hater like myself can like) and Inferno — no film could possibly aspire to follow up those two opening films and get good reviews. Indeed, other than a few rare moments and an ambitious apocalyptic plot, there isn’t much in Mother of Tears to impress. The plotting is crazy, but the execution feels far less audacious. Even with Asia Argento in the lead role and Udo Kier hovering menacingly in a supporting role, the film struggles to capitalize on its own potential. It avoids failure with a few flourishes, but again the comparisons to earlier Argento are almost unbearable — what would the younger Argento have been able to do with the budget and digital effects required to do justice to this kind of wide-scale vision of horror? Tough to say, but we’re on somewhat firmer ground in calling Mother of Tears a disappointment made even worse by the unrealistic comparisons that it courts.

  • Il fantasma dell’opera [The Phantom of the Opera] (1998)

    Il fantasma dell’opera [The Phantom of the Opera] (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but—with Dario Argento writing and directing an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera with Julian Sands and Asia Argento in the lead roles, I expected a lot more. This should be familiar material for Argento, who made the stage a centrepiece of his 1987 film Opera—alas, without much improvement. Argento-the-writer’s decision to change the Phantom from disfigured romantic to rat-friendly misanthrope is a crucial false note, while Argento-the-director to go full-gore on material that doesn’t necessarily call for it is another misfire. Julian Sands disappoints as the Phantom, although Asia Argento more or less performs at her level. Much of the same can be said about Dario Argento himself—if you were expecting much from 1998 Argento, then you hadn’t been paying attention for years at this point: the director was a shadow of his own self by that time in his career, and while fans could hope for 1970s Argento to handle the promising material, what they got instead was 1990s Argento and his substantial limitations. All of this to say that, unfortunately, Argento’s The Phantom of the Opera is closer to comedy than romantic horror: overly gory, not particularly attuned to the possibility of the material and decidedly showcasing the director near his worst, it’s perhaps most entertaining by being ridiculed.