Phenomena
By Yahoo! Shopping User Jul 15, 2001
Phenomena Phenomena is reportedly Argento's favorite of all his movies. While I might opt for Suspiria or Deep Red instead, Phenomena is certainly one of Argento's strongest movies. The plot itself is somewhat similar to Suspiria: a girl arrives at a... private school at the same time that a mysterious assailant is murdering the students. While she is at the school, strange things happen. In Suspiria, we get a scene where maggots fall from the ceiling. In Phenomena, we get a scene where flies descend upon the school in a huge swarming cloud. But the similarities pretty much end there. While Suspiria introduced us to a demonic force brought into existence by a coven of witches, Phenomena's dangers are of a more worldly origin. The story is structured around a 13-year-old student played by Jennifer Connelly. Insects react to her telepathically. We find this out early when a bumble bee flies in the cab window as she's being driven to the school. Instead of swatting at the bee, she calmly allows it to alight upon her hand, and then she gently strokes its back. She seems quite attuned to nature, but inside she's deeply troubled--as shown by her nightly sleepwalking escapades. During one of her nightly excursions, she meets and befriends a wheelchair-bound scientist played by Donald Pleasence. He has been helping the police investigate the spate of recent murders by examining insect larva on the corpses. The larva may carry evidence about when and where the murders took place. In one of the movie's great scenes, Connelly takes one of Pleasence's prize specimens, a sarcophagus fly (a species widely reputed for its ability to search out corpses) on a bus ride through the Swiss countryside. When the fly begins to buzz frantically round its small glass cage, Connelly sets it free and follows it to an isolated country house. Scenes like this one are quite rare in the Argento canon. Usually his movies spend all their time and effort on scenes of bloodshed. However, in Phenomena, Argento focuses on scenes that might be more appropriately described as lyrical, with the towering Swiss Alps serving as the backdrop. Unfortunately, the movie's delicate mood is frequently crushed by the heavy metal musical score. Some of the songs, particularly those by Claudio Simonetti and Bill Wyman (of Rolling Stones fame) are evocative and mysterious. But others, by bands such as Iron Maiden and Motorhead, carry all the subtlety of a brick to the head. The movie's ending sequence is quite notorious as one of the most audacious gross-out episodes in film history. But the movie works best in its quieter moments, as when Connelly's fellow students taunt her and a huge swarm of flies respond to her distress by covering the school. Instead of unleashing the fury of the insects, Connelly turns and smiles at her tormentors: "I love you. I love you all," she says. It's a great scene. A separate DVD audio track provides commentary by Argento, musician Claudio Simonetti, and special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti. However, Argento's command of English is weak at best. As he frequently stumbles and gropes for words, the commentary becomes a real test of devotion for Argento fans. Almost mercifully the commentary frequently goes silent for minutes at a time. However, if you stick with the commentary, you'll learn a few things, such as the clouds of flies were created with a simple effect--coffee grounds in a water tank were superimposed on footage of the girls' school. Read more Less
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