Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Director: Peter Strickland
Writer: Peter Strickland
Actors: Toby Jones, Antonio Mancino, Guido Adorni
At the core of any film lies two basic and fundamental elements, sound and picture. It is what sets film apart from other mediums. Music is solely sound, while paintings are solely picture. Obviously this is a gross oversimplification but the point still stands, film manages to combine many artistic element in order to create what we know today as movies. These fundamental elements are so intrinsic to movies that we often forget about them, unless they are brought to the forefront of the film. Take for example La Jetée, it makes you doubt what is a film. Can a series of pictures be a movie? Well, yes it managed to do it flawlessly. Okay well can a movie exist without sound? Again yes, we have many films from the silent era that goes away with sound. These fundamental elements have been so ingrained in our idea of the identity of a movie that we rarely notice or think about them. Rather we tend to noticed the movie as a whole, the sound, the visuals, and everything else just meld into one. So when a film decides to either omit or expand upon one of those fundamental elements, we tend to notice it, and it must be something special otherwise it wont work. What I mean by that is that the mere novelty of omitting moving pictures was not the thing that made La Jetée so good. It was how it managed to use that to its strength and flesh out this novel approach to the best way possible. Berberian Sound Studio tries to take a novel approach to sound. It expanded upon the element of sound and put it in the forefront of the film. Making it the key element that was creating the tension within the plot and also with the viewers. However the way La Jetée managed to fully flesh out its novel approach was almost fully lost upon Berberian Sound Studio.
As the film kicks in I instantly realize what the director is trying to achieve. In short he is using sound as the main element of horror and tension. This usage is affecting both the characters/story and the viewers watching the film. It was a very interesting idea to start with, and it reminded me of a short film that I will discuss later in this review. Regardless I was intrigued. However after the first twenty minutes of the film it started to get stale. The plot sort of tapered off and we started seeing a lot of repetitions of this idea of using sound as a medium to create agitation in the audience. It started to lose its affect and focus. The biggest crux of the film in my opinion was not the usage of the fundamental element of sound, but more of the film’s lack of ability to flesh out that usage. By opting for a feature film to display this approach we are unfortunately given a piece that loses its main goal within the first thirty minutes. Once the climax starts to come closer the novelty is completely gone and the effect of that surreal finale was almost gone in my eyes. Which is a great shame because I wanted to enjoy this film when it started. I quite liked this approach to horror and building up tension. It was just the execution that left me constantly wanting more.
Now I mentioned previously that this film reminding me of a short film I had watched a while ago. The parallels between both pieces may not be obvious to many but I felt it to a certain extent. The short I am talking about is called Outer Space by Peter Tscherkassky. That short film managed to achieve everything Berberian Sound Studio wanted to do with sound in merely 10 minutes. Although the sporadic imagery and intense editing also helped in the overall horror and tension, to me the sound is what always haunted me. It made me feel so uneasy and it actually built up the tension in such a simple way. No jump scares, no convoluted story, just sound. Berberian Sound Studio falls short due to its inability to actually flesh out that idea. I believe if it was a short film in the same line as La Jetée or Outer Space, it could have been able to achieve what it set out to do. But as is, it sort of just tapers into an abyss of mediocrity.
