If you’ve ever remarked aloud words to the effect of “this job is killing me,” then perhaps you can understand the kind of hell that protagonist Gilderoy (Toby Jones) faces in Berberian Sound Studio, a meticulously unnerving film by Peter Strickland.
Gilderoy is a sound editor for movies, recognized internationally as a true artisan in a mostly vulgar industry. He takes an assignment in Italy that turns out to be a lurid horror movie about the Inquisition, and finds himself at odds with everyone around him, including the raging director (Cosimo Fusco), the playboy producer (Antonio Mancino), and various unhappy actresses who complain that they haven’t been paid.
Time is measured fitfully. Gilderoy, feeling more trapped every day, is unable to get reimbursed for his airfare by a sneering secretary (Tonia Sotiropoulo), forcing him into a captivity spent devising gruesome sound effects for a movie about (mainly) torture and screaming women.
We are witness to countless taping sessions of chopping, stabbing, boiling, and mutilating many pounds of fruits and vegetables, which never seem to get cleaned up, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at a studio full of moldy produce.
And it appears the mold is growing in direct proportion to the increasing torment depicted in the film being made, which the viewer never sees.
Meanwhile, actresses continue to scream in the sound booth. The director isn’t remotely satisfied with anyone’s terror level, and bullies the hapless audio supervisor into turning things up a bit.
Not surprisingly, the mild-mannered and repressed Gilderoy begins to lose his grip on reality, cheered only by an occasional letter from his mother. Even these become sinister as the days roll by, as if the carnage he helps create in this cursed Italian production has infected every branch in his life.
Writer-director Peter Strickland has cunningly fabricated a stinging slow-burner about the frailty of the creative spirit and how the battle between art and crass commercialism can cost you your very soul—not unlike say, Barton Fink.
Berberian Sound Studio plays out as a hypnotic and haunting collage of rolling tapes, clipping VU meters, and the turning of knobs, all of which contribute to a very soft man’s ruin, brilliantly realized by veteran stage actor Toby Jones, with whom we sympathize every awful step.
It’s also a “way homer” and worth the time it takes to puzzle over. I’m still thinking on it.
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