The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
(L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970)

Dario Argento

Italy

98 min, color, English

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

This is the first film Argento directed and it also happens to be the first of his "animal" trilogy gialli. It is a tour-de-force debut that introduces all the major themes that would later find full expression in his famous thrillers. There is the dark mysterious black-gloved killer, the vicious murders, the hapless protagonist who finds himself sucked into the darkness of the crime in an attempt to discover the identity of the killer before he loses his own life, the many false leads and twists in the investigation, the spectacular violence against women, and the inspired camera work. Even Ennio Morricone's score is good even if it cannot hold a candle to Goblin that would later lend Argento's film their most memorable aural impact.

Disgruntled customer protests closing	Eva Renzi pleading for help

Argento's fascination with memory and art starts right here as well. We have a protagonist who is convinced he has seen something more than what he can remember and that this has something to do with solving the mysterious murders. Unfortunately, he is unable to reach into his subconscious and command it to pry out the small tidbit of information he needs. Incidentally, this seems to be a result of the very thing that makes Argento choose women as victims of his most spectacular violence: they are automatically perceived as helpless targets of male aggression and as such it is hard for one to conceptualize them in a reversed role. The very thing that makes the viewer sympathize with such victims can actually help them literally get away with murder. I have no idea whether Argento wanted to make a statement like this, but if he did, it is quite apt and quite timely and appropriate to what is happening these days here in America, where women's organizations have been so successful in bringing to light abuse against women that they have swung in the other extreme and have made them out to be nothing more than victims who cannot help themselves and who must rely on state protection. This has not only led to neglect of the other gender of victims (about 30% of cases involve men getting abused by women) but has reversed one of the main accomplishments of feminism: the eradication of the idea that women are weaker and incapable of fending for themselves.

She does not have a Roman aquiline profile	What's a six-letter word for "person who gets killed"?

But let's not go off on a tangent about something that may be fundamental to Argento's plot but that only comes to light relatively late in the film. Instead, let's focus a bit on the story, which is quite interesting as a simple whodunit. Sam (Tony Musante) is an American writer with a bit of a writing block who has come to Rome, "where nothing ever happens" (I thought it was Des Moines that nothing ever happened) to ghost-write some dumb book about birds or something. One fine night, he becomes a witness to an attempted murder at an art gallery: he sees a man dressed in a black trench coat, wearing black gloves and sporting a black hat struggling with a woman over a knife. Suddenly she manages to pry herself loose but it's too late: she has been stabbed in the stomach. The man runs out of a back door even before Sam reaches the glass front doors of the gallery.

He's not gay, just into antiques	I don't get modern art either

The next sequence is superb. Sam is trapped between the sliding glass doors: he can neither get inside to help the woman nor go to call for help. He is forced to watch her stagger and fall to the floor, hand stretching out to him in a plea for help which he cannot even hear through the glass. He presses hard against the door but he cannot render assistance, the woman finally passing out in front of him. He paces back and forth and finally succumbs listless to the floor when the police arrive. It is a gut-wrenching scene that is beautifully photographed, the bright lights of the gallery and the transparency of the glass door incongruously mocking Sam's inability to see precisely what has happened or help the victim who nearly loses her life literally in the open. Eva Renzi is absolutely stunning to look at and she acts the agony of her character Monica very well, aided by the slow-motion soundless depiction of it from Sam's perspective.

I've got good news and bad news... okay, just bad news	Obligatory gratuitous shot of Eva Renzi

Even though Monica survives, the attempt on her life has the police thinking that it is somehow linked to a series of killings of women that have occurred in the past weeks. There is no apparent motive, no witnesses, nothing. In fact, the press is not even aware that the police believe the same homicidal maniac is responsible for all these murders. Sam has the lack of foresight to let the police know that he believes to have seen something that he cannot quite put his finger on but that is somehow critical to the investigation. The police think it may be that Sam has actually seen the killer's face, but that does not appear to be true. Periodically throughout the film, Argento would force Sam to attempt to reconstruct the scene but that small detail would remain as elusive as ever until the very end. The police deprive Sam of his passport and inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) tries to get the American involved in the investigation even though Sam does not appear thrilled at the prospect. It becomes even worse when soon after that he is assaulted by the unknown man with a cleaver. Apparently, the guy also believes that Sam must know something.

Tony dodging bullets and camera focus	Suzy can't believe all that testosterone

The film becomes a standard crime thriller when Sam finally agrees to stay put and help the police out. He enlists the help of his stunning girlfriend Julia (Suzy Kendall) who is none too happy about the Rome PD blackmailing her guy into essentially being a bait to spring a trap on a doubtlessly deranged person. Sam's investigation quickly leads him to the antique shop where one of the previous victims used to work and he finds out that she had disappeared right after showing one disturbing painting to a client. The painting depicts a particularly distressing scene: a man wearing a black hat, gloves, and trench coat is assaulting a girl in the middle of a desolate winter square in some unnamed village. He is about to rape her, with his knife drawn. Sam decides that this painting has something to do with the killer, and he is right because we soon see that shadowy figure of the assailant staring at the original painting handing on the wall in some apartment.

We, the Italian police, will be using you as bait	Those swinging 70s (in the background)

Even as the killer attempts to off Sam, the spate of murders of girls continues. One is tracked home through a park and then assaulted in her bed. The other is killed in her own building. In either case, the killer is quite vicious but the attacks never involve the rape of the victims even if they have their clothes stripped. (It is worth noting that Argento also debuts here as the hands of the killer, a "role" he will reprise in just about every one of his film.) Interestingly, and somewhat uncharacteristically of a deranged lone psychopath, the killer apparently hires a hit man to get rid of Sam. There is a nice sequence involving a night chase that reminded me of a Cold War-era film with spies trying to rub each other out amid some spectacular surroundings. This time, it's a bus parking lot although the yellow-jacketed assassin is no William Tell when it comes to marksmanship.

Honey, what do you think about Dadaism?	Hi, do you have cat food?

As will become usual for Argento, the violence is mostly directed against women. Even though several male characters die in the film, in two cases their last moments are not even shown---we arrive "too late" to see what has happened, we just witness the results, which are uniformly unimpressive; one guy is stuffed into a cabinet, the other is knifed in his belly. One guy whose penultimate moments are recorded falls from the third story to the paved sidewalk, an admittedly unpleasant way to die but nothing like the mayhem inflicted upon the women who are repeatedly slashed and stabbed, and whose last moments are shown, usually from the killer's perspective. Argento has been regularly accused of misogyny but I don't think this holds water (and I am not just talking about this film whose final revelations render the debate moot). As usual, none of the men cut particularly sympathetic figures. In fact, if one must generalize, Argento's men are quite off-putting most of the time and they are portrayed as rather ineffective caricatures of the masculinity that is supposed to protect the helpless women.

Gratuitous shot of Suzy Kendall	She can't get out, but the killer can't get in either

In this instance, Sam shows himself to be a self-involved guy who manages to get his girlfriend nearly killed for no other reason than the satisfaction of his own curiosity. He is always on the run and has to be rescued on several occasions by others because when push comes to shove he always bungles it and is rendered incapable of defending himself. It is worth noting that whereas the female victims invariably evoke empathy, every time Sam gets in a tight spot, one wants to scream at his ineffectiveness. One revealing scene where Argento subtly satirizes the male chauvinism that results in an ever-climbing body count is the otherwise unremarkable sequence where Morosini comes to tell Sam that there has been another murder, prompting Julia to go off on him for dragging Sam into a dangerous situation which he, as a police officer, really has no business doing. Sam patronizes Julia by embracing her and effectively shutting her up with a pat on the head and a "there, there... don't worry, my little thing" type of brush-off, which is even more annoying when one remembers that she is also a target of the maniac (which is made clear soon enough by the guy himself in a phone call). Morosini does not even bother to talk to her, he shrugs it off and the two men leave on manly bushiness leaving the little woman by herself. At the door, Morosini turns around and apologizes to her, but it's not exactly clear what for: it's not like he's taken her seriously.

Eva Renzi, damsel in continuing distress	No First Amendment in Italy

All of this renders the scene where Julia finds herself in a locked dark room with the attacker relentlessly trying to find a way in all the more stressful: after all, she did not choose to be placed in that position, it was her idiot of a boyfriend that did it. And after all the solemn promises to protect her, he is nowhere to be seen (actually, he is off talking to the artist who painted that picture). Although one can fault Argento for Julia's instant loss of simple motor skills---she does manage to bolt the door but when confronted by the bars on her bathroom window (which incidentally prevent the killer from getting in as much as they stop her from escaping), she collapses on the floor, in fetal position, sobbing. She musters the strength to block the door with a piece of furniture but when the killer drills a hole in the door and peeks through it, all she can do is scream hysterically and lunge at the hole with a knife achieving nothing. I do not suppose that people remain composed and rational under such extreme circumstances, but I somehow cannot see them forgetting how to do simple things, like opening windows, for example. Whatever the minor quibble about this, the scene is very well done, and it just highlights the utter irresponsibility of men who ignore the perils that they subject their "little women" to. Of course, this makes the ending all the more delightful.

I'm gonna carve you up... if I could only see you	This modern art can be so depressing

Unfortunately, I have the VCI DVD which used to be the best one available but is not anymore. The video is presented at 2.35:1 and is anamorphic but it does not look all that good, especially when compared to the superb recent Blue Underground edition. There is some print damage and the scenes appear flat and a bit too dark, which is pretty bad because there are many dark scenes and the blacks never look right. There is also some pixellation although it's not too bad. The English stereo soundtrack is serviceable but again nothing to get excited about. There are no subtitles. The menus look horrid with oversized buttons that look like they were produced by some canned software. The extras include trailers and talent files (text only) plus a menu to access Morricone's music directly as separate tracks. The film is definitely a must see but if you want to own this on DVD, go for the Blue Underground release.

January 7, 2006