Tenebrae (film)

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Movie
German title Tenebrae
Original title Tenebre
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1982
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK unchecked, indexed and confiscated FSK 18 (cut version)
Rod
Director Dario Argento
script Dario Argento
production Claudio Argento
music Goblin :
Massimo Morante,
Fabio Pignatelli,
Claudio Simonetti
camera Luciano Tovoli
cut Franco Fraticelli
occupation

Tenebrae is an Italian giallo ( thriller ) directed by Dario Argento from 1982. It is also known under the titles Tenebre , Tenebre - The cold breath of death or Unsane .

action

The American writer Peter Neal travels to Rome to present his latest bestselling novel "Tenebrae". His literary agent Bullmer, his assistants Anne and Gianni and his ex-wife Jane (of whose presence he does not know) are already waiting for him . Shortly after his arrival, he learned from the two police officers Germani and Altieri that a murder had taken place in Rome shortly before: The murdered person, a shoplifter known to the police, had his throat cut with a razor, just like the victims in Neal's crime novel . In addition, the perpetrator used book pages from Tenebrae as a gag .

Neal, initially believing in a coincidence, has to discover that his luggage has been ransacked, and also receives several mysterious letters and a threatening phone call from the perpetrator, who ultimately threatens Neal himself with death. A short time later, Tilde, a lesbian journalist and acquaintance of Neal, and her friend are found dead in their house, both with their throats severed. When Maria, the daughter of Neal's landlord, is brutally murdered with an ax by the perpetrator after accidentally breaking into his hiding place, Neal decides to get to the bottom of the matter herself.

During his research, Neal notices that the television presenter Christiano Berti, to whom he had just given an interview, was noticeably interested in Neal's book Tenebrae and that there is also a striking correspondence between Berti's statements and the perpetrator's messages. Then Neal and his young assistant shadow Gianni Berti's house. Coincidentally, Gianni witnesses how Berti is brutally killed with an ax by an attacker, but cannot recognize the perpetrator. Completely scared, Gianni flees and finds that Neal has been knocked unconscious with a stone, obviously by the perpetrator. Both leave the house immediately and agree not to disclose the incident.

The next day, Neal informs his literary agent Bullmer that he is planning to leave Rome for a while. After he leaves Bullmer's office, a cutscene reveals that Bullmer is having an affair with Neal's ex-wife Jane. Neal and Gianni then drive to Berti's house where Germani already with the crime scene is busy. He shows them detailed written records of Berti about Neal's life and career, which show that Berti must have been obsessed with Neal's person. Germani assumes, however, that the same murderer must have been at work as in the previous cases. Neal says goodbye to Germani in order to prepare his departure. Meanwhile, in another cutscene, Bullmer is murdered with a knife by an invisible person in the middle of a busy, public square.

In the evening Gianni goes to Berti's house again to investigate, but is strangled from behind by the perpetrator with a rope on the way back in his car . In the meantime, Jane calls Neal's assistant Anne and asks her for help, as she fears for her own life after the murder of her lover. Anne immediately leaves for Jane's apartment. However, Jane is brutally killed with an ax by the perpetrator before her arrival. A woman who enters the apartment immediately afterwards is murdered by the perpetrator in the same way. The identity of the murderer is also revealed: It is Peter Neal himself.

While Neal discovers that the woman is Detective Altieri, Detective Germani and Anne enter the apartment. Horrified by the murder of his colleague, Germani calls on Neal to surrender. This, however, runs his throat with a razor blade and collapses, covered in blood. Assuming that Neal is dead, Germani leaves the house with Anne to inform his colleagues from his car. Then Germani returns to the apartment, but is horrified to discover that Neal has only faked his suicide with a prepared razor blade. Neal now kills him from behind with an ax. Startled by the noise, Anne also returns to the apartment, where Neal is already waiting for her with an ax. Upon entering, however, she accidentally knocks over a large sculpture consisting of huge iron thorns, one of which pierces Neal and literally nails it to the wall. The film ends with the bloody death of the murderer.

background

According to Argento's testimony, Tenebre was inspired by an incident he experienced while on vacation in Los Angeles . There he was called several times in his hotel room by a crazy fan who even threatened him with death. This terrifying experience and further experiences of senseless violence would ultimately have moved him to film Tenebre.

With the films Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980), Argento began a film trilogy about the "three mothers" Mater Suspiriorum (mother of sighs), Mater Tenebrarum (mother of darkness) and Mater Lachrimarum (mother of tears), made by Thomas De Quincey's book Suspiria de Profundis was inspired and, unlike Argento's Giallo films, dealt with more supernatural subjects. But the 1982 film Tenebre was not, as was sometimes wrongly assumed, the last part of this trilogy (this only appeared in 2007 under the name The Mother of Tears ), but rather represented a return to his Giallo films.

The soundtrack for the film comes from the Italian progressive rock band Goblin , with whom Argento had already worked in two of his previous films ( Profondo rosso and Suspiria ). In the credits , however, only the three band members Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli and Claudio Simonetti are listed, because the band had actually split up in 1980, but got together again for his film at Argento's instigation.

One of the most famous scenes in the film is an almost 3-minute long tracking shot with a camera crane , which leads across a house and around it until the killer's hands come into the picture. With the technology that was still new at the time, the scene turned out to be the hardest to realize and most complex scene in the film.

Due to the extreme brutality of the film for the time, only heavily shortened versions were released in many countries. The US video version was released from 1984 under the title Unsane shortened by ten minutes. The British version was only shortened by a few seconds before it was released, but shortly afterwards it was included in the list of video nasties , which later comprised 39 films , and indexed. It was not cut until 1999 and then released in full in 2003. In Germany, the film was initially released in a 92-minute video version, which was indexed by the Federal Inspectorate for Media Harmful to Young People in 1987 and confiscated nationwide .

Reviews

Since the film was severely shortened when it was released in most countries and the plot and aesthetics were severely impaired, the first reviews were also rather negative. With the release of only slightly or not at all shortened versions, this changed and the film is now one of the classics of the giallogenre:

“Argento [returns] here to his Giallo roots and, like with“ Profondo Rosso ” , presents a thoroughly styled detective with Grand Guignol murders and an extremely worldly killer. […] The luxuriant Art Deco worlds of “ Suspiria ” and “Inferno” have given way to a cool, bright clarity in which the color white dominates and - when the red blood splatters on white walls - the incursions of violence seem even more drastic and exaggerated than they already are. [...] A pretty bloodthirsty Giallo with a body count of 10 ... and of course a must-see for all genre fans, beyond any doubt. "

- Julian von Heyl : Review on Echolog.de

“One of the superlatives in the Giallogenre, excitingly staged and distracting from one or the other logic error through enormous visual attraction ,“ Tenebre ”knows how to convince across the board. Modern synth music of goblin information and more than satisfying actors make the film a feast for the senses, which is unparalleled in its intensity in the genre. Sensual, intoxicating and fascinating! "

- Benjamin Johann : Review on Blairwitch.de

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c angwa.de: The color of fear - The world of Dario Argento part 2 . Accessed July 8, 2009.
  2. ↑ a b Review on Echolog.de . Accessed July 8, 2009.
  3. ↑ hysteria-lives.co.uk: The Video Nasties Furore . Accessed July 8, 2009.
  4. ^ Tenebrae in the online film database , accessed July 8, 2009
  5. ↑ Review on Blairwitch.de, accessed on July 8, 2009.