Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Happy Birthday Asia Argento! Trauma (Dario Argento, 1993)


By six degrees of Brad Dourif, I'm finally updating this dusty old blog. Meant to post this on Dario's birthday (7th September) but life intruded and it went on the back burner. But as it's his daughter Asia's birthday today (she's turning 41), seemed an ideal time to finally finish it, with her being one of the stars of course. Spoke about this before briefly as part of My First Moviethon but been meaning to come back to it in depth ever since. So here we go...


The movie opens by showing us some kind of mechanical diorama that I'm guessing is about the French Revolution. What's important for our purposes though is that some poor bugger has got their head chopped off via le guillotine. In a way, it's a curious way to begin (though it does have significance to the plot) and one of many quirky moments to be found throughout that have Argento's prints all over them. Also, it's the first of quite a few instances in which Trauma seems to be riffing on Deep Red


Following this, it's off to the chiropractor's... and also off with their head, as an unseen assailant uses a rather nifty device that mechanically closes a noose of piano wire or something around this poor lady's neck and allows the killer to collect their first trophy. As a side note, this scene also introduces an element that instantly predisposes me to love the movie... that is, it's frickin' pissing it down! And without getting into why (cause spoilers), rain will prove to be very important throughout the film.