31 Days of Halloween: Day 5

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) Director: Dario Argento

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is the first film Dario Argento directed, and already some of the signature characteristics of what would become his defining style are present.  It's a giallo film, and the one the really shook up the genre and brought it to a new level.  While not as overtly violent as Argento's later works, his strong visual style and taste for creative set pieces are present here in his directorial debut.

An American writer named Sam Dalmas is staying in Italy as a sort of way to regain inspiration for his next book.  Mere days before he is planning to return home to the States, he witnesses a murder from a distance.  The woman who was attacked survives, and Sam is questioned by the police, with the lead detective believing that Sam must have seen a vital detail that can help solve the crime.  Sam learns that this is just one attempt in a series of murders that have been taking place in Rome recently.  Sam finds himself engrossed in the mystery and takes it upon himself to investigate the crime and find out the identity of the killer.

The writing is solid and Sam is a likable, smart character who is easy to cheer for.  The final twist at the end is not particularly predictable and certainly makes one think of a certain Bava film, but to say which one would likely be a spoiler.  Nothing feels too fantastic or unbelievable in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and it is much more restrained than Argento's latter films.

Early in his career, Dario Argento was often times described as Italy's Alfred Hitchcock, and his films like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage certainly have a Hitchcockian flavor to them.  Rear Window (1954) comes to mind while watching The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.  In both we take on the perspective of someone else in a morally questionable way.  In Argento's film this takes the form of POV shots from the camera of the killer.

See what the killer sees.

Another film that comes to mind is the controversial British film, Peeping Tom (1960), directed by Michael Powell.  In this film the viewer takes on the perspective of a the killer himself, and assumes his identity. 

As already stated, there are great visual moments in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and the first attempted murder in particular stands out.  Sam is trapped Obi Wan Kenobi style between two glass walls as he watches a woman on the ground struggling to stay alive.  All he can do is watch as she squirms on the ground.  Again, like in so many of Argento's films, the act of watching explored and the inability of people to help those who are being attacked.

Sam trying to break free from the glass cage to save a stabbed woman.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a tightly constructed mystery thriller, that takes the tropes of the giallo genre at the time and turns them on their head and pushes them to a new level.  It's interesting to see an Argento film that places so much emphasis in narrative coherence, considering in just seven years since directing this picture he goes on to make Suspiria and completely loses himself in films that take people into his nightmares.