Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

I'm a big fan of films where impressionable protagonists enter a world of images and fictions. The challenge is how to model madness, by what degrees to confuse and clarify. DePalma could do this type of film, fooling with layered placement and identity of the eye—it'd be as cool as this and obvious in its main thrust about madness, but probably not as ambient. Lynch could in a more powerful way.

The story is that a shy sound-man goes to work on an Italian exploitation movie, this is to establish him as a creative person who will have to imagine things, and to establish the things he's going to imagine as of some darkness. He is an introvert, so we can have this conflation of inner and outer sensitivity to phenomena. Funny: shy is here equated with unattractive appearance in the main actor.

The film is entirely contained on a soundstage and around the studio where the soundtrack is being prepared. The actual horror movie is never seen (except for the opening credits which serve as the credits to our film), always inferred from what we see of the sound-carpet being fitted, the screams and slashing sounds, and this is a crucial point: the horror movie never quite materializes, so there's widespread negativity in reviews.

Oh, we get obvious hallucination in the latter stages that I could do without, linked to movie screens as borders of reality — it clarifies too much. But there's something else I liked, simple and inventive.

All sorts of sound effects are constructed over the course of the film before our eyes, from ordinary means: melons are slashed, pumpkins are splattered, broth is boiling. The first time we see the effect being recorded, and then an off-screen voice announces what it is supposed to be the sound of, and it's done a second time. It's fun to see on a fundamental level as exposing the kind of unceremonious but inventive technical work that takes place behind cinematic curtains of illusion.

But more marvelous is exemplifying the mechanism of that illusion that creates the imagined horror story in our mind — the second time the sound becomes the mental image just described to us. By making it so immediate, it's a powerful exhibit, observable in your own self, of the mind acquiring illusory images — the images become what the off- screen voice announces. Wickedly clever! Because it puts us in the protagonist's shoes, by introducing a disruptive level of imagination.

So I think you must see this at one point. Based on his previous film and now this, I have this filmmaker on my short list of talent that I expect he has it in him to be a leading voice a decade from now.

Fmovies: Just as so many reviewers have already mentioned on here, this film lacks big time in plot and is very very slow. the film really looks good, they managed to create a very creepy atmosphere, the acting was also above average, so it had all the recipe for being a good film, but it ultimately failed mainly because the plot had no target, and the whole movie did not go any where, it was a repetitive mess of boring scenes over and over. You can feel that there is a good film in there somewhere, but the director and the writers failed to bring it out and Berberian Sound studio ended up a boring slow film that is better avoided.

the plot as many have mentioned revolves around a British sound engineer hired by an Italian director to work on editing a Horror Italian film, once arrived and started working on the studio, he starts to feel homesick and lost with the people around him. more than half the movie is in Italian without subtitles, something done deliberately im assuming to have the viewers feel as lost and confused as the main character, the only problem that it was over done and not executed properly, to the extent that we as viewers really felt lost and bored listening to the never ending Italian talk throughout the movie without understanding anything!!

the biggest problem with the film is that it repeats itself with the same sort of scenes over and over, usually of actors working in the studio and the British engineer working on the editing looking confused and depressed with an aggressive Italian sound director along side him, with no clear goal or target for the film and ending up so confusing, slow and boring. Avoid

The story on the other hand is confusing to say the least. But that is meant to be experienced like that. The question is if you are willing to enjoy the ride. You could also say it's a bit of style over content, though I'm sure the director must have a plan in mind and could explain it all to you.

The cast is great, the pace of the story on the other hand is really slow. Another factor that might make this unbearable to watch for some people. It's definitely a great look behind the scenes of sound making, whatever you think of the movie. Another great thing is that the movie can be watched a couple of times, so you could discover new little things in it.

Berberian Sound Studio fmovies. What an intense and intelligent movie this is. As others have noted, the nods to Italian cinema of the 70's era are bold and brash, yet it's also a quintessential Englishman abroad drama. The atmosphere created by the soundtrack was electric and it felt like hearing the world with new ears when I left the picture house at the end.

Don't expect a neat narrative, this film plays with your senses and your understanding of whose doing what to who and why. It's exceptionally claustrophobic throughout, and the disconcerting edits constantly leave you asking more questions about what's going to take place next.

So I've read the raving reviews, not one bad one to be found, which is odd, as I heard at least 5 people leaving the cinema tonight muttering the words 'what a cr*p film that was'.

I understand it's a take on 1970's horror movies, blah, blah, blah. But imagine if you hadn't seen one?

The sound is amazing, interesting, atmospheric and amusing, (did they really make sound effects like that back then?) but once you realise that's all the film is all about you begin to lose interest. Personally I like a storyline, but isn't one.

As for the last 20 minutes, I have absolutely no idea what that was all about. Being a massive Kubrick fan I'd normally love surreal scenes like this. But it all felt a bit like we've run out of ideas here, lets just add a twist to make it more interesting. Which doesn't work at all.

If you like self indulgent stylized films then you'll love this. I prefer films with emotion that move you. This couldn't move me to the exit quick enough

'Berberian Sound Studio' is a film about an English sound technician (Toby Jones) who is used to creating sound effects for children's TV shows, who travels to Italy to work on a horror film. We follow him as he grows more and more homesick and as he gradually becomes hopeless.

There isn't much in the way of acting in this film but Toby Jones is a very talented actor and does perform well here. The other actors certainly are not poor, they give decent performances but none of them are particularly memorable.

The script is so basic and undeveloped you can practically see the writer shrug and say 'that'll do,' by the end. The first half hour is interesting because you get to see how sound effects are made and the whole dubbing process in general. After 30 minutes this gets tiresome however and I know it is supposed to be cyclical and seem never ending for Toby Jones, but it is so obscure you don't really care. When a film gets to the point where it thinks it's smarter than everyone else it becomes a pretentious mess, leaving you thinking they could have written that same concept with a more understandable and entertaining script. It deliberately tries to confuse you by adding pointless scenes here and there but in the end you realise the film only lasted an hour and a half but seems to last three hours.

Overall, this was quite disappointing. I really wanted to like this film; I had read so many great reviews on it and was looking forward to seeing it. Unfortunately it made me question the judgement of so many film critics that I follow.