Deep Red (Director in Focus: Argento Restored)
Key Cast: Daria Nicolodi, David Hemmings, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril
Director: Dario Argento
Producer: Angelo Iacono, Salvatore Argento
Screenwriter: Bernardino Zapponi, Dario Argento
Cinematographer: Luigi Kuveiller
Composer: Giorgio Gaslini, Goblin
Hailed as one of the greatest giallo works ever made, this oneiric fever dream about an amateur sleuth attracted praise from the Alfred Hitchcock himself.
When a psychic is brutally murdered in her apartment, English jazz pianist Marcus – a resident of the same building – teams up with Gianna, an Italian tabloid journalist, to solve the murder. As the pair pursue various leads, the meat cleaver keeps swinging and more bodies begin to drop. The musician becomes a suspect, then a target. Is Marcus in over his head?
Co-written by Dario Argento and Bernardino Zapponi (Fellini Satyricon), Deep Red is stylish and horrific in equal measure – a masterpiece of ingenious cinematography, frenetic editing and menacing sound, the last of which credited once again to the director’s prog-rock collaborators Goblin. With nimble starring turns from David Hemming (Blow-Up, MIFF 1976) and Argento muse Daria Nicolodi, who would go on to star in four more of his films, this intricate, lushly visualised story of suspicion and neurosis is a must-see on the big screen.
“The best of Argento’s non-supernatural mysteries … Undoubtedly the finest of Argento’s thrilling horrors.” – Empire
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