PHANTOM OF THE OPERA FOCUS FILM ; BUDAPEST dvd specification original year of release: 1998 approximate running time: 100 minutes aspect ratio: widescreen anamorphic 1.85:1 system: NTSC (colour) rating: unrated sound: english dolby digital 5.1, english dolby digital 2.0 surround dvd release: a-pix region: 1 region coding: none dvd extras theatrical & video trailers behind-the-scenes material; production notes interview with actor Julian Sands closed-captioned, available Spanish subtitles fangoria magazine article (brother of horror by Martin Coxhead) film-themed menu screens with sound and animation photo gallery

Dario Argento's take upon the classic Gaston Leroux novel. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA / IL FANTASMA DELLA OPERA is a Dario Argento costume drama. 'A Dario Argento costume drama!', incongruous rather like (say) 'A Merchant Ivory horror film'. Admittedly not as bad as THE STENDHAL SYNDROME / LA SYNDROME DI STENDHAL, the film is nonetheless a second consecutive misfire from the one-time golden boy of gialli cinema and struck me very much as the work of a director feeling his way back from a monumental mis-step towards the sort of work he does best. A baby is abandoned by it's parents at birth and in an unwitting echo of BATMAN RETURNS is put in a basket and sent down a stream and allowed to float into the Paris sewers. Here the unfortunate mite baby is greeted, saved and (apparently) eventually raised by rats and other creatures of the underworld. It's a poor start and one of the most idiotic plot concoctions, absurd even by Argento standards. Narrative construct has never been a strong point for Dario, but this is ridiculous!. Many years later an opera house has been built above the sewers and the once orphaned child, now a man, lurks aimlessly about the shadows of the opera house. Many claim to have seen him but none have looked him directly in the eyes and lived to tell about it. They call him "The Phantom" and his ongoing legacy is a series of terrifying accidents and brutal murders which should lead a trail to subterranean caverns of an opera house basement he calls home, except no one ever seems to investigate!.

The Phantom (Julian Sands) falls in love with Christine (Asia Argento), a beautiful aspiring singer who understudies the Diva in the opera house. He wants her to become a star and will do anything to that end, providing she's willing to do anything he wants, to subjugate herself completely to his will. Christine it seems has a psychic connection with The Phantom and for a time believes he is the one for her, eventually the Phantom makes his move and Christine is kidnapped and ravished; slowly the phantom gains control over her mind and she does his bidding. In the blink of a rat's tail however, Christine begins to discover that there is rather more to the Phantom than she originally thought and a showdown is on the way. Christine hates the Phantom one-second and loves him the next. God knows why; it's never clearly explained. Christine is ultimately torn between her love for the Phantom and Raoul (Andrea Di Stefano), a mortal man who is also in love with her.

Argento's version is a pretty inaccurate adaptation of the Leroux original. Argento, as is his want goes off in his own direction, by making the Phantom a man raised by rats instead of a tortured genius wrecked by a competitor.Argento's Phantom is a handsome longhaired blonde guy. This man is disfigured from the inside; no scars, no mask, no bad Broadway songs either (okay, that last one is a good thing). The one basic quirk, besides the murderous anti-social behaviour of Sands' Phantom is his love for rats, at one stage even covered in the dreadful little creatures. In this version, he's nothing more that a serial killer with no real agenda and no real idea.

Shots of poetic grace (the Phantom's visions of children pierced by mousetraps - chilling) and shots of extravagant kitsch (Asia's appearance in the same scene!), wacky supporting characters with a taste for paedophilia, humour -the film is deliberately funny in places and some simply weirdscenes (like the one in the brothel - out of place in an Argento film) make for a godawful mess, albeit a beautiful looking one. The special effects veer from the poor to the downright inept and really bad acting by everyone aside from Asia leave a movie that looks good on still pause with the sound off.

It's a painful fact that, for Argento fans (myself included) each new release from the former gialli-genius records a new low in his career. After the poorly received TRAUMA and the disgraceful THE STENDHAL SYNDROME, one felt Argento was slowly, inexorably sliding downhill; PHANTOM is no exception and you've seen THE STENDHAL SYNDROME you'll know that this is some feat. As if to underline the fact, I was constantly reminded, thanks to the setting of the same director's earlier, vastly superior OPERA. Argento manages to excise any of the romance and mystery of the novel and replace it with dull characters, an utterly uncharismatic British luvvie of a phantom (the execrable Julian Sands) and a thorough sense of boredom. Let's not forget that Gerard Brach, the co-scripter, is the man who co-wrote FRANTIC, THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS and many other Polanski films, so there dual culpability here, but Argento should've known better by some distance. Where there was once suspense, breathtakingly choreographed violence and relentless ingenuity there is now low comedy and an overwhelming desire to sleep. This said, it does contain a considerable amount of beautifully composed and executed shots of the underworld, the caves beneath the opera house. The spider webs hanging, scuttling critters, underground river and darkness gave a satisfyingly eerie atmosphere from time to time. It's not enough to save the film, not by some distance. It's lacking the style and baroque flourishes that characterise the best of Argento, the acting is poor, the script mundane and worst of all Argento directs at funeral pace; the film unfolds like unedited time-lapse photography. This film just didn't seem very Argento to me, lacking his unique feel, touch and style and is the sort of eurohorror mess that could be ascribed to any hack.

In short, a release for acquisition by Argento completists only; I am one, thus I'm fine with having it, but if you're new to Argento or curious, do yourself a favour and hang on for DEEP RED, SUSPIRIA or INFERNO. If, like me you're a particular admirer of PROFONDO ROSSO, again hang on. All these are out on R1 from Anchor Bay early 2000. This I think, will disappoint most Argento fans sorely. Incidentally, the cover of the dvd shows someone behind a mask, which you assume is The Phantom. However, throughout the entire film The Phantom never wears a mask.

video This dvd is from A-Pix - a company they tell me are trying hard to put out quality product. They've put out only a couple of dvd's so far, but this is by far their best attempt. The film is presented in its original theatrical ratio 1.85:1; an impressive transfer; 16x9 enhanced, with a 1.33-1 full-frame transfer lurking on the flip-side. The video quality is superb, anamorphic enhancement very evident during darker scenes such as those cavern scenes that on VHS or a sub-standard transfer would've just ended up as an ill-defined grainy blackness. The image is crisp and clear throughout the entire film, virtually no glitches of any sort were observed. The colours were rich and well balanced; blacks were solid. There were a few fractional spots of digital compression artifacting evident, but these don't distract and are barely noticeable. There is no evident grain, flesh tones are generally accurate and as I have already said, colours, especially blacks are splendidly realised. Not a light movie at the best of times, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA presents the film as well defined; candles for example, are positively incandescent and Argento's imagery is sharply realised.

sound The available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1) (Dolby Digital 2.0) are excellent. The Dolby 5.1 audio is especially impressive and fills up the room. The music, echoy effects and dialogue are well represented and clarity is splendid. Dialogue was clear and audible throughout the entire film. All speakers were active throughout, I was especially impressed to hear so much activity from the rear speakers, as it seems quite a lot of discs films with 5.1 mixes under-perform in this area. There are shrieks, splats, and musical performances, so the sound obsessives out there will be very satisfied.

extras Theatrical & Video Trailers Behind-the-scenes material; production notes Interview with actor Julian Sands Closed-captioned, Available Spanish subtitles Fangoria Magazine article (Brother of Horror by Martin Coxhead) Film-themed menu screens with sound and animation Photo Gallery A-Pix's extras are a mess to put it bluntly. When listed, they sound to be a pretty good selection, but… There are two grainy, full-screen trailers, curiously accessed from the main menu and not the supplementary materials. In any case they're not very good, both are plagued by artifacting and neither are remotely flattering to the film. They are the US theatrical and A-Pix video trailers. It's always good to see relevant previews, but these are poorly conceived and presented. The behind the scenes footage which covers the filming of various scenes is no more than a rough assemblage of random footage totalling 10 minutes. Un-narrated and again plagued by artifacting it's worth watching, if only to see Argento directing and setting up various shots and scenes, but again it is poorly presented. The promotional interview with Julian Sands who plays the Phantom is best described as irritating. Clearly cut down from a longer interview, it is broken up by infuriating wipes and I personally wondered whether Sands was stoned given his syntax and mannerisms. There are no even relatively insightful or interesting elements within the three minutes it lasts, bar perhaps Sands' claim to be an admirer of Argento. The other elements are just about worthwhile enough without being in any way essential, Coxhead's Fangoria article about Claudio Argento (the producer and Dario's brother) is okay, when not rabbiting about that Mexican idiot Jodorowsky but it's typical Fango; vacuous and aimed at 10-year olds with bloodlust and a minimal attention span. The photo gallery with various behind the scenes and production shots is passable and the filmographies are incomplete. Sadly lacking here, is a 'commentary track'. The R1 releases of PHENOMENAand TENEBRE were so enhanced by the Argento commentary tracks that the absence here is very disappointing. THE STENDHAL SYNDROME release from Troma even has a commentary track and that is an even more dreadful movie!

conclusion It's a cracking presentation of a mediocre film. I am a major admirer of the director's work and as such admittedly biased, this is one of his lesser films. Good enough dvd presentation to recommend, but hardly unhesitatingly and probably not to fellow devotees of the man and his work as the content so well presented is so poor. Not certain how those who don't especially admire his work might take to it, even worse I imagine, but as contemporary horror movies go, there are many better. Undiscriminating horror fans may be satisfied by this, Argentophiles will definitely not be satisfied. But for the people out there who want only the most out of their dvd's regardless of the movie itself, this is a special edition that gives a good return in it's presentation of the main feature. It's worth checking out just for that.

reviewed by Peter Lynch

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