InsaneJournal

Review: Argento's Phantom of the Opera
So, my_daroga finally sat me down and made me watch Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera, starring Julian Sands and Asia Argento and "based" on the Phantom of the Opera story (yes, the quotes are necessary). And this post is to tell you you must see this film. There are three reasons this movie is awesome:

1. It is so bad.
2. And yet, a few parts are so good.
3. Parts of this film are unique and thinky in spite of itself.

• Thrilling Aspects (on a stick!)

-Rat!sex.
-The director checking out Asia's boobs.
-The director being Asia's dad.
-Phallic deaths.
-Phallic lives.
-Did I mention sex with rats?
-A tongue getting torn out by someone else's teeth.
-my_daroga saying, "Wouldn't the teeth bite through the tongue first?"
-Raoul, looking exactly like a Raoul.
-Julian Sands NAKED.
-Rodent shenanigans. Also, sex.
-The Phantom threatening to bite off Carlotta's breasts.
-Degas. Yes.
-Turkish baths, with wild aristocratic depravity, and Raoul naked.
-And Philippe naked.
-Rats. Naked.
-Really bizarre, horrible lip syncing.
-A rollercoaster go-cart invention that hoovers up rats.
-Hoovered up rats.
-Sexed up rats.
-Long blond haired skirry dudes who run about with capes and are secretive always do it for me. Good thing Lucius doesn't live underground.


-Ratcatcher/midget/formaldehyde!rats = OT3 for life!
-How bizarrely sexual the attacks in this movie are.
-Like Snakes on a Plane.
-Except with rats.



• Thinky Thots Wot I Thinked

This movie is about deviancy, in particular, sexual deviancy. What I like is it's not just one character (the Phantom) being a freak; there's this whole atmospere of sexual deviancy, which may actually not be so inaccurate for the era and place.

For instance, much of the deviancy is explored in the form of aristocratic dissipation. This is interesting as class commentary. People would see the Phantom as a freak, but is Raoul so different? Raoul has a scene of dissipation in the Turkish baths, naked people fawn all over him, and we see how he longs to "corrupt" Christine. Is this meant to parallel to Julian having sex with lots of rats and actually corrupting Christine?

The other instances of aristocratic debauchery interested me because they explore opera politics in a way that is implied in Andrew Lloyd Webber, touched on in Leroux's book The Phantom of the Opera, but probably very prevalent in interests of historical accuracy. In ALW Raoul is a patron of the opera and so to some degree seems to have free access there. The managers meanwhile, are bourgeosie, but still higher class than the ballet rats, which may be why they're checking them out as if they have free access to them. In Leroux, the relationship between the higher classes and those less fortunate seems made more explicit. I can't remember--didn't Sorelli's livelihood actually depend on Phillippe's, ahem, patronage of her?

At any rate, in this version of Phantom this distorted "exchange" is very direct. We see the director zeroing in on the actress's boobs higher classes harrassing the ballet rats all the time. It seems apparent the poor opera denizens are at the mercy of these wealthier, older men, the way many servants of this day were. If they did not comply in these sexual exchanges, they'd be out flat on their arses, and have no one to whom to report these indignities who would give a damn.

What does it mean, anyway, that rodents play such a prominent part in this story, and the dancers were known as ballet "rats"? The lower classes were never treated as anything less than vermin; those more powerful always assume they are thus superior and able to deal with "less" beings in any manner of their choosing?

Speaking of power and aristocracy, the Phantom in this version seems different because he appears to have ambition. Can't remember his words exactly, but he does say something about rising above, and/or "showing them". The ambition of ALW's Phantom is love. The ambition of Leroux's is a normal existence (just like Buffy or Harry Potter. What is it with these people? There should be meta.) But Argento's Phantom seems to want power. I wonder if this is yet another commentary on the class divide. The one who is bucking the system is the freak. (But also, he does sleep with rats.)

Which brings me to another philosophical matter not quite so direct in most Phantom stories*. When I first heard the POTO story (it was ALW), I was expecting something Beauty and the Beast-ish--you know, hideous/repulsive/frightening appearance, heart-of-gold. Of course, as Christine points out, the Phantom's true distortion lies within his soul. But so much of that musical is dealing with that face that it's never very clear whether it's his face or behavior that really puts Christine off.

Argento, OTOH, gives us a Phantom who is beautiful, or would be if he washed his hair, and even if he never did have I mentioned Julian Sands, NAKED? So, because the Phantom is beautiful, his gruesomenesss, his horror, his ugliness, is all on the inside. Other Phantoms have the excuse of their faces for being evil--what's Julian's excuse? But what's interesting is that Julian seems just as constructed from his external circumstances as the other Phantoms, even without the horrible external circumstance of an ugly visage. That is, Julian's upbringing, his home environment, his status as it were, his nurturing not his nature make him the fiend he is. I think it's a stretch to say all this is more class commentary, but if not--what the hell was Argento thinking?

Besides getting Julian Sands, NAKED, I mean.

*(It's difficult to access how people react to Erik's inner ugliness due to the fact that people so often are reacting just to his face, and that's the nature of the story, that Erik is ugly. What's interesting is how many versions of the actual Beauty and the Beast fairytale DO seem to address this, when "canon" for Beauty and the Beast is solely about outward ugliness as opposed to inner. But in so many B&Bs, Beauty couldn't give two shakes about Beast being horrifying in appearance; it's his inner character and the way he treats her that appalls her. Or am I just thinking Disney? Let's check:

The only similarities I see...

...mostly have to do with icky hair.

This is here because I love people.

In conclusion:

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