3 out of 5

Directed by: Peter Strickland

Interesting but ultimately disappointing, Berberian’s main highlight is in its flip-flop of tension, pushing the unseen to very unnerving limits, and using – very purposefully – sound as its main method of communication.  Well duh, you say, sound happens with film, but director Peter Strickland very meticulously lumps all of the attentiveness requirements onto his viewer, stripping away our comforts by tossing sound engineer Gilderoy (Toby Jones) first into a genre of film with which he’s not comfortable – horror – playing up the character’s obvious squeamishness with this, and then by alienating us via language, as English-speaking Gildy has flown out to Italy for this project, and those with whom he works have no need to speak English around him, nor does Strickland, for the sake of the film, have any need to subtitle it.*  It’s fascinating at first, being forced to absorb through context, just like the character, and then punishing as it wears on, aligning our response once more with Gilderoy, who becomes increasingly distressed both at the voraciousness of the flick on which he’s working (which we never see – only hear) as well as the extremely isolating conditions, alleviated only by infrequent letters from his mum.

And all of this (including the mum letters) are used against us for the flick’s final third, which is when Berberian tries to go weird and collapses under its own weight.  It remains visually interesting, but it makes its point at length and at the expense of – at least for this viewer – my interest; that the film opens with the credits of the movie Gilderoy is working on gives us all the hints we need for the life imitating art shtick that’s at play here.  Strickland’s approach – and funneling this into horror via an undeniably tension-inducing use of visual restraint – definitely shows there was care and consideration in the film’s construction, but following it out to a 90-minute end leaves a bit too much room for repetition and, in that last third, tension-deflating gimmickry.  In a way, the only thing that saves this from leaning toward being a failure is that it’s ‘meaning’ is pretty obvious, so you’re not waiting for the ending to explain anything.  Still, the eye- and ear-grabbing lead-in makes one wish Strickland could’ve devised a less surreal way of bringing things to a close.

*Update, a few days later: Turns out the movie DOES have subtitles… which the totally legal version I watched did not.  My gut reaction is that this makes me immediately dislike the film, as I considered the lack of subtitling a bold move which absolutely enhanced the alienation vibe.  Admittedly there was so much Italian dialogue that I had some doubts that it was purposeful, but regardless, I was convinced enough that I obviously wrote the review without double-checking.  My post- gut reaction is that the director could have used subtitles to add further tricksy maneuvers to the plotting (and IMDB comments suggest this), juxtaposing what we see Gilderoy probably considering is being discussed vs. what is actually discussed, although I’m not fully sold that that as effective as truly having no clue as to what’s going on.  No, I’m not rewatching it with subtitles.  Add that to my overall opinion of the film as you will.