After last year’s loving tribute to the great Jean Rollin, Italian maestro Dario Argento is the next to get the documentary treatment with Simone Scafidi’s Dario Argento Panico. And luckily for us, the filmmaker is still alive and creatively kicking at the age of 83 and able to provide details from his own memories.
From the beginning of his career as a writer and film assistant to a brief discussion and interview with his daughter, Asia, about the logistics of filming some very uncomfortable scenes together, Dario Argento Panico pretty much covers most of the bases. Add to that some reverence from filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn and Guillermo del Toro and one clearly understands the lineage of influence from Argento’s wondrous, strange, garish, and genre-defining career.
Opening with the filmmaker being checked into a hotel (just as he used to do when starting a film to separate himself from reality), Argento curmudgeonly asks how long everything will take, and from there, Dario Argento Panico reflects on the man’s work. While not being a straight film-by-film record, it does touch on the highpoints, especially his fascination with numbers in his early films and his iconic relationship with the progressive rock band Goblin who scored a number of his biggest works. The portion on Suspiria (1977) alone deserves its own exploration as one of the most immersive and fascinating horror films of its decade.
While not an exact thorough run through of all his films (his 90’s and early 2000’s output gets barely a mention), Scafidi does a nice job of eschewing that somewhat boring trait to magnify the relationships in Argento’s life, especially with his sister, ex-wife, and daughter. For a filmmaker who so often puts his female characters through the ringer, Dario Argento Panico makes us understand that the real women in his life were much more important than the terrified protagonists of his films. It’s especially interesting to observe the nascent influence of his mother, who served as a photographer to the Italian cinema stars and the bold influence her images held over the young Dario.
Produced and scheduled to air on the Shudder Channel, Dario Argento Panico is a nice primer for those unfamiliar with the filmmaker, but for other fanatics of his work, the film can feel a bit assembly lined. But, as previously mentioned, a documentary is always improved when the subject himself is available to add perspective on a career that can often be twisted or skewed in one direction. Then again, Argento twisted and skewed the genre for so long, this might read as an accomplishment.
Dario Argento Panico will air on the Shudder Channel beginning on February 2, 2024.
Dallas Film Now. 