The Los Angeles Times has posted an article called “Argento is man of the witching hour,” which anticipates the world premier of Dario Argento’s MOTHER OF TEARS at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it will kick off the Midnight Madness section. The article truly whets the apetite for the film – which fans have been anticipating for twenty-seven years. In fact, one of the main points it addresses is why Argento took so long to complete the trilogy begun with SUSPIRIA and INFERNO:
“Creation is not on a schedule,” said Argento recently by telephone from Rome. “I’m a strange soul. I didn’t want to stay in the cage of the trilogy; I wanted to explore other landscapes. After ‘Inferno’ I thought, ‘Not now.’ And then three years ago I had an idea, like a trumpet in my ear, and I thought, ‘OK, now I want to finish the trilogy.’ ”
It’s a question I’ve repeatedly asked him,” said Alan Jones via e-mail, as to what drove the filmmaker to finally complete the trilogy. Author of a book on the filmmaker, “Profondo Argento,” Jones visited the “Mother of Tears” shoot.
“I got the feeling he was ready to broach the subject matter again because he wanted to restore his tarnished reputation. . . . It might also be because he finally wants to draw a line under it and stop the endless questions about it.”
The article calls MOTHER OF TEARS a “career capping victory lap and a new beginning. Although the film can very much be seen as a return to form for Argento, it also puts new twists on his filmmaking. Rather than the strictly storybook fantasy world of “Suspiria” or “Inferno,” the new film is a heady mix of rough-hewn, street-level realism and the boldly stylized set-pieces of Argento’s signature works.”
“I was filled with trepidation,” Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes said of his feelings before seeing “Mother of Tears.” “I invited a friend along as a second opinion, and we kept turning to each other, ‘Can you believe what you just saw?’ It’s really a return to his roots in a lot of respects. It’s like watching a glorious Italian horror film from the late ’70s and early ’80s. There are scenes where the audience is going to totally freak out.”
We can’t wait to see it.