Fat Brother personally loves "Stormy Winds" by Italian horror thriller Dario Argento in 1977.
That's definitely the pinnacle of Italian lead film (Giallo Film)! It only took Dalio Aquido 14 minutes to establish himself as a master of horror thrillers. Strong use of color,
Eerie styles, futuristic genres of painting and architecture,
There is also the signature Goblin (Goblin) psychedelic electronic music, which makes the film "Wind Gusts" erode the bones and horror.
40 years later, "The Winds of The Wind" is still the most classic horror thriller in Italian cinema, and the haunting fear transcends time and space and is still remembered. Luca Guadagnino, also an Italian, became the focus of attention when he announced the remake of this horror classic. It is no exaggeration to say that the "wind" of the new version of "Wind Gusts" blew for a whole year last year.
From last year's eve of Cannes to the premiere of the Venice Film Festival. After that, word of mouth was polarized, the two sides quarreled between you and me, and the entire film festival almost became a debate competition for "Wind in the Clouds". With "Call Me By Your Name", the director Luca Guadalino, who became popular, received countless praises, and suddenly the style changed dramatically, and he made a horror film, but it was still a remake of the classic, which was really coveted.
Coupled with the film's number one fan Quentin "strongly recommended" after watching it, he claimed to cry bitterly and tears after watching it, and warmly embraced The Gua Dao,
Some media people directly declared that they "surpassed the original version", and this series of evaluations made people full of curiosity about the new version of "Wind Gusts". As a heavy taste plasma horror thriller patient, after watching the new version, the first feeling is ignorance, the second reaction is bored, afraid of personal preferences affecting the overall judgment, I calmed down a few days later in the review of some scenes, still can only give "not recommended" evaluation.
The new version of "Wind Gusts" is indeed "not good-looking", and its "not good-looking" lies in excessive innovation, making the threshold for watching movies a bit "unattainable". The new version of "Stormy Wind" is too niche, resulting in its evaluation being seriously torn. The old version of "Wind in the Wind" was born out of the heyday of Italian lead and yellow films, and the audience accumulated a certain style aesthetic ability, and Dalio Aquido only scheduled various elements to the extreme, highlighting the style and weakening the story.
But in the new version of "Stormy Winds", the courageous Luca Guadagnino made drastic changes to the original work, only borrowing the core part of the story, from the style to the story, from the actors to the theme.
In terms of story, it is still told that American girls go to a Dance Group in Germany to participate in training, and accidentally discover that this dance group, which is all female members, is actually a cult controlled by witches.
The core members of the organization train young female dancers, in fact, for the purpose of the organization leader, the goddess of sighs to find a host.
The young girl is the future shell of the Goddess of Sighs, helping the Goddess of Sighs resist the elixir of youth that decays through time. The members of the organization will use various methods to slowly bring the girl to her knees,
From food to life, from body to spirit, constantly weakening, exercising control. Susie, played by Dakota Johnson, as the new version of the heroine, seems to be weak, but in fact, it is hidden and killed, and her identity is special, which has also become the biggest narrative turning point in the whole film.
The old version of the story follows the narrative rules of traditional Hollywood movies.
With a little bit of Hitchcock's suspense, the story is the rebellion of weak women, the rejection of the collective by individuals, the declaration of war between good and beauty against ugliness and evil, the ending is bright, and the audience is addicted to watching.
But the new version of "Stormy Wind" subverted the entire story line, at the end of the film, the victim in the eyes of the audience, the heroine Susie showed her true face, the relationship between the characters came to a 180-degree reversal, scaring the audience almost unable to hold their jaws. And throughout the story, a lot of side narratives have been added, with political, gender, and religious metaphors.
Politically, the backstory is set during the civil war when the Berlin Wall has not yet collapsed, and the Berlin Wall, which symbolizes ideological barriers, appears on the screen many times.
And the Witch Academy was built next to the Berlin Wall. The "Red Army" resistance actions are repeatedly mentioned on television as narrative subtexts, and these background messages provide a large number of political texts for viewers to interpret.
However, the film's most concentrated metaphors come from gender and religious transliteration. The main characters in the whole film are women, not to mention the bloody appearance of the "Great Devil King" sighing goddess in the film. The men in the film are either arrogant or cowardly, such as the detective who comes to investigate becomes the "pet" of the old witches, the knowledgeable old professor becomes the victim of the witches because of overconfidence, and the male is the object of humiliation by the witch group in the film, one of the completely controlled playthings.
The performance of the female body is the highlight of the whole film, and it is also an important aspect of feminism. Director Guadagnino's reference and homage to feminist art throughout the film is based on a high degree of exploration and utilization of the female body. Large sections of the film's dance originated from the German female dancer Marie Wiggmann and were carefully choreographed by the modern dance finger Damien Jallet. Dance and religion are related as a sacrificial ritual; dance and control are intertwined, manipulating obedience; at the same time, punishment after failure of resistance and betrayal.
There is a chilling parallel clip in the film, where the new girl is trained in dance on the one hand, and the girl who tries to escape is twisted to the point of limb fragmentation;
The bloody dance at the climax of the film is even more shocking, the dancers are almost naked, dancing like a dionysus in blood red, and the visual spectacle of a group of demons dancing has drawn a strong stroke for the film. The dance and body in Storm of Shadows are the medium through which women channel violence and power, practice witchcraft, and spread fear.
The body subtly forms symbolic relationships with themes such as gender identity, violence and control, death and life. Therefore, the core element highlighted by the theme of the new version of "Yin Wind Gust" is the secret relationship between the body and control. From the exploitation of the female body to the artistic imagery of the female body, Luca Guadagnino's portrayal of feminism in the new era deserves recognition.
But this also puts forward requirements for the audience's ability to interpret, too many symbolic metaphors, text blank, so that many viewers yawn, the film's horror has been weakened.
From the dance to complete the subversive reconstruction of the old version of the classic, but also paid the price of "ahead of time", the new version of "Yin Wind Gust" is a classic or a failure, I believe that time can give the final answer.