Quote:
Originally Posted by bdc  I'd love to know your thoughts on Beatrice Cenci,Byleth and Zinda Lash (The Living Corpse).  |
I'd seen
Beatrice Cenci for the first time a few years ago and couldn't remember much about it, so thought I'd give it another go. For Fulci, it's actually very tame and plays out like an oppressive period drama tinged with tragedy. It's an okay watch (mainly for Thomas Milian, and the very pretty Adrienne Larussa), but not one I'd recommend very highly.
Byleth is another I hadn't seen for a while, and again one I remembered little about. In fact, there were a number of crossed wires in my grey matter concerning this and
Beatrice Cenci; which is why I most likely decided to watch them back to back (well, that and both hardboxes sit next to each other on my shelf
). Whilst both use the period setting and gothic atmosphere,
Byleth is a lot more erotically charged than
Beatrice is. The film is also quite dreamy in places, which adds to the interesting atmosphere. I slightly preferred
Byleth over
Beatrice, but whilst neither were in any way 'bad', I wouldn't recommend either very highly.
The Living Corpse (AKA:
Dracula in Pakistan) started off well. The black and white cinematography is excellent (I watched the Mondo Macabro DVD, which aside form a few judders due to print damage makes for an impressively crisp transfer) and the suspense is built very nicely. However, as you approach the 30 minute mark, the inevitable happens. The fact that you are watching a Bollywood style (not true Bollywood, as this film was made in Pakistan and not India) take on Dracula becomes all the more apparent and the singing and dancing breaks out. I'm not oblivious to Bollywood film stylings, and how dance and music is an integral part of their cultural heritage in regards to film making, but it completely de-railed what up until then had been a genuinely interesting and suspenseful little film; Bollywood has its fans, but I am just not one of them. This 'nonsense' then plays out for most of the middle portion of the film, and I was almost ready to right the damn thing off, as you jump from one bemusingly random dance number after another, but I persevered and the film thankfully fell back into the boundaries of (near) sanity at the end.
Overall a very interesting experience, and one I'd certainly recommend. There will be many who will be able to stomach the music and dance routines much better than I (and I don't mean to come across as close-minded or insulting in this micro-review), but for me these perpetrated the 6/10 score I'd give this film over the 8/10 score I had in my mind before that sitar started furiously strumming