Berberian Sound Studio - Okay

Starring: Toby James, Antonio Mancino, Susanna Cappellaro
Director: Peter Strickland
Runtime: 1 hour, 32 minutes
Drama | Horror | Thriller | 2012

The first thing I have to say about Berberian Sound Studio is… how on Earth is this movie only an hour and a half? I felt like I was watching it for like three hours or something. It was such a slow and fairly boring movie I just thought I had wasted most of the morning. Other than the pace of the film though, I thought it was interesting for the most part. It’s a movie about making movies, with deep concentration on the sound mixing aspect of the soundtrack.

Gilderoy (Toby James) has been hired onto an Italian movie to do the sound mixing. In the beginning he states that he has never worked on a movie quite like this. Also in the beginning, the film makes sense. Towards the end we start to bend our minds with what is happening for real and what is happening in the film.

I’m not going to lie. I was pretty tired while watching this movie and I had a hard time staying awake. Just a little advice, this isn’t a good movie to be half awake for. There are scenes where they are speaking in Italian and you have to read the subtitles. And there are scenes where there is no sound at all.

Honestly, I have no clue what I just watched. It was confusing and I can’t even tell you what the plot of the story was. I enjoyed the sound mixing aspect of it. All the sounds and the recording were extremely creepy and strangely entertaining. But that’s the gist of what was good about this film. I mean, how can a movie about sound mixing not have good sound mixing? It does.

For me, it was strange seeing Toby James in this role because I only see him as the crazy scientist in Wayward Pines. But I also remember him from The Mist, Captain America, and Atomic Blonde, though he doesn’t stick out in my mind for those for some reason. There is one recurring theme to his roles… scientist… and that’s awesome. Thanks to IMDB, I’ve discovered that he is also Dobby in Harry Potter. Love that little elf.

I’m going to give this movie an “okay” rating. I would not have chosen this movie to watch if I was just going to watch a movie. It’s really weird and I’d bet that David loves this one. Seems like it’s totally up his movie alley. (2/5)


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