Notes from the Peninsula
On writing, films and living a creative life
Spirals
Returning from holiday, I went into an overwhelm spiral, and I'm only just getting out of it. Nothing too serious, but frustrating nonetheless. Lots of loops are closing, but it’s taken me a while to acknowledge that, and they’re not yet completely closed
Tags
DarioArgento SeenRead DavidLynch 31DaysofHorror2023 31DaysofHorror2022 31DaysofHorror2021 31DaysofHorror2020
Socials
You can find more of me here:
Gluteal tendinopathy (and me)
The pain was in my groin, or the front of my hip, or deep in my buttock, but it was a debacle with a Pilates machine that finally led me to Physio One.
The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
Imaginative and clichéd, intriguing and brutal, this film is primarily about rape, torture, and insanity. Asia Argento goes insane in Florence on the trail of a serial killer and rapist.
The Black Cat (1990)/Trauma (1993)
These two odd kittens are making me wonder if the Dario Argento project is reaching its end. The Black Cat sees a deranged, beret-clad Harvey Keitel play a photographer obsessed with taking pictures of mutilated bodies.
Early summer books
All Fours, by Miranda July. I haven’t laughed out loud so much at a book since Bridget Jones’s Diary. The unnamed artist makes terrible, hilarious decisions over and over, but she’s also just trying to have the horny creative life she wants.
Opera (1987)
Opera is the last of what’s regarded as Argento’s unimpeachable run of giallo-horror-thrillers through the seventies and eighties. For me, there are hits and misses, but Opera is one of his best.
Phenomena (1985)
Like in Suspiria, a young woman arrives at a female-run school where students are being murdered by an unseen killer, but there are no witches in Zürich, just a girl who has an unconscious connection with insects.
Tenebre (1982)
You see different things in a good piece of art as you get older. I wrote about Tenebre back in October 2020 for the #31DaysofHorror challenge. I loved it then, and I love it now, but the protagonist is far less likeable than I remember, and the twists more surprising.
Inferno (1980)
If Suspiria was a step away from the narrative rigours of a whodunnit, Inferno is a giant leap, with four (four!) protagonists in two cities — but it starts with a woman, Rose, being sold a rare occult book called The Three Mothers and coming to believe her apartment block was built for a witch.
Suspiria (1977)
Suspiria is a vivid, colourful dream where death stalks us, out of sight but ever-present. Characters die in complicated and fantastical ways to Goblin’s driving mix of Moog synths, bells, whispered vocals and a drum beat for the ages. And it’s a film filled with strong women. The men are all ineffectual side characters.
Deep Red (1975)
After making a couple of thrillers for television and a hard-to-find historical comedy that was a commercial flop, Argento returned to Giallo with a twisty, colourful, Goblin-scored mystery.
Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)
Roberto, an American drummer in a band recording in Milan, chases a man who has been following him and accidentally kills him. A masked figure takes photographs and begins to torment Roberto, but what is their motive?
The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1971)
A blind ex-journalist overhears a conversation about blackmail outside his apartment. A newspaper reporter investigates a burglary in a nearby laboratory. As people at the lab start to die, the two men join forces to uncover the story.
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)
In Panico, Dario Argento describes himself as being of two halves — the contented person at home, and the person who is compelled to investigate the darkness inside himself through making films.
Changing
I’m six months into a new job. My father’s house is for sale. My son is living in Australia. My daughter is gearing up for GCSEs next year. My wife and I are looking at each other and thinking, this is the time we’ve been waiting for, and yet neither of us have clear plans.
Darling buds
Four days off work! My plan was to not have a plan and trust I would do what I needed to do. It’s day two and I’m excited because things are changing — my glute tendons are healing (YES), my meditation habit has bedded in (now I miss it when I can’t do it), I’ve...
Gathering ideas
The heart of this project is writing new material. I also want a mechanism to let me easily share my work as I go, including selling it (shock horror!), without getting hung up on finding an agent and getting published.
Cornish horrors
I took my time with Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land’s End, a collection of short stories I bought in Swansea Waterstones on one of my visits to see my father. Research can quickly become procrastination.
Impatience
Making art means making a mess. It means tidying up, organising, and discovering something in doing it. There are unexpected emotions. There are doubts and dead ends. There are technical problems.