Isolation is the name of the game in Peter Strickland’s new thriller Berberian Sound Studio. The film concerns itself with a British man Gilderoy, played perfectly by Toby Jones, a sound engineer who is asked to come to Rome to work on the sound design of a new Giallo film that is currently in post-production at the Berberian Sound Studio.

The film begins with Gilderoy walking into the Studio for the first time. The first person he runs into is the receptionist who warns Gilderoy, before he can get a sentence out, that she doesn’t speak a lick of English. This is a running idea throughout the film. Gilderoy is the only person in the film who speaks English thus whenever anyone else talks to each other in the film it’s in Italian. There are numerous shots of him looking lost or in wonder of what is being said. A lot of the shots that are framed around Gilderoy are tight close ups on his face.

Adding to the confusion, the film they are working on is never shown. Images reflect on the actor’s faces as they watch the film they are producing. Other than 2 or 3 minutes of a film that consists of shots of landscape, there are no scenes that take place outside the studio. Strickland aims to keep you feeling as alone and secluded as possible. And it works.

From the look of Berberian Sound Studio, making sound for film can be as fun as it is as frustrating. Using everything from fruit, instruments, and different pieces of flooring and ground (dirt, grass etc.), Gilderoy and his team begin to craft the sounds for their new film. For example, when someone is getting hacked to death by a serial killer, cutting up a watermelon is used.

Strickland’s filmmaking works wonders (for a while) for the film. References to some of the great Italian horror directors, like Dario Argento and Mario Bava are thrown in. Even David Lynch, the great surrealist filmmaker, has a hat tipped to him. The tone of the film is quiet and calm. But you can tell something is amiss. You feel like at any time something could go awry. Credit goes to Strickland for keeping the audience on its toes throughout the film.

Jones’ performance as Gilderoy is one of his best. As a man who is slowly losing his mind, Jones keeps his performance in check. He doesn’t go overboard with acting and stays on the right side of the camp. The same cannot be said about Strickland. While roughly 80% of the film is well done and a very good example of claustrophobic filmmaking, the final 20% loses the plot. The film ultimately goes nowhere, which is very unfortunate considering what preceded it.

Rarely do I think films need to be longer but in this case, I think another 20 minutes could have been beneficial to the film. Berberian Sound Studio feels like Strickland ran out of money and had to just release what he had filmed. Because of this the film never becomes what it originally set out to be. While Berberian Sound Studio isn’t a total loss, it has great atmosphere, sense of dread, and some great performances, I can’t quite recommend it since it derails from its plot about 20 minutes before it ends.

2012 Toronto International Film Festival came to close on Sunday when officials announced the Audience Award went to Silver Linings Playbook, a film that now has some serious Oscar potential. We did not attend a showing of that crowd-pleaser film but below is a recap of the films that Way Too Indie writer CJ Prince did see at this year’s festival.

Recap of Way Too Indie coverage of 2012 Toronto International Film Festival

Day #1: An Introduction to the festival

An informative article about Toronto International Film Festival along with helpful film festival pointers.

Day #2: Spring Breakers and The Master

The first actual day at the festival was full of delays which resulted in leaving early from Spring Breakers to catch P.T. Anderson’s highly anticipated The Master.

Day #3: Tabu, Amour, 90 Minutes, No One Lives

This was the busiest day at the festival as it consisted of four different films including Amour which many believe to be a front runner at the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language.

Day #4: Cloud Atlas and The Land of Hope

Easily the largest budgeted film we cover, Cloud Atlas, ended up being one of our favorites that we saw.

Day #6: Berberian Sound Studio and Here Comes The Devil

Back from taking one day off from the festival we cover a film that was on Way Too Indie’s Top 10 Most Anticipated Films at TIFF 2012.

Day #7: The Hunt and Leviathan

This day would end up be to the best overall day, Leviathan which ended up being the best film we saw by far and The Hunt which was a crackling drama.

Day #8: Post Tenebras Lux and When Night Falls

Two films from TIFF’s Wavelengths programme which are films that straddle the line between conventional and experimental.

Day #11: Penance

Finally we close out the festival with an epically long 5 hour film that ended the festival on a mediocre level.

Way Too Indie on Twitter

Follow @WayTooIndie on Twitter to see all of our festival coverage as well as daily reviews and news. Below is a recap of some our TIFF ’12 coverage.

Front of the spring breakers line is almost entirely young girls who are here for the cast. Poor souls have no clue what they’re in for.

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 7, 2012

Screening delayed already, dammit. Gotta catch the master no matter what even if it means skipping on this movies ending #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 7, 2012

From what I saw SPRING BREAKERS was a typical Korine movie for me. Hit and miss, with incredible highs and dull lows. #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 8, 2012

THE MASTER: going to take another watch before I get a better idea of what to think. Plenty of amazing stuff but it doesn’t come together

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 8, 2012

Filling in for AMOUR #TIFF12 twitter.com/WayTooIndie/st…

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 8, 2012

Say hello to the directors of CLOUD ATLAS #TIFF12 twitter.com/WayTooIndie/st…

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 9, 2012

CLOUD ATLAS: Welp, they did it. Huge epic, it’s faults are overshadowed by its huge ambitions. #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 9, 2012

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO: Some fantastic moments but it gets too bogged down in its insanity to be truly great #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 11, 2012

Thomas Vinterberg at a Q&A for THE HUNT which got a standing ovation twitter.com/WayTooIndie/st…

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

Overheard someone say they thought Morgan Freeman died a week ago, so anyone who thinks that #TIFF12 is for intellectuals can rest easy

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

LEVIATHAN: holy shit. Holy shit. Holy Shit. Holy. Shit. HOLY SHIT #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 13, 2012

In my 5 years of attending #TIFF12 I have yet to meet a nice person with a lanyard.

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 13, 2012

POST TENEBRAS LUX: Uh… #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 13, 2012

Well guys it has been a fun #TIFF12. Thanks for the follows, RTs and support. I now hand the reins back over to Dustin, see you next year

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 16, 2012

Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio is very much a movie about movies. In it we follow Gilderoy (the excellent character actor Toby Jones), a sound man who accepts a job offer in Italy on a giallo slasher. Its 70s setting helps put the focus on Gilderoy’s analog sound work which requires some creative ways to get desired sounds. All we see of the giallo film is a psychedelic credit sequence but there are plenty of times where we watch Gilderoy stabbing cabbages, pouring hot oil on a pan or blending tomatoes to mimic the sounds of the heinous acts we aren’t able to see. Eventually all of the fake brutality gets to Gilderoy, and he slowly becomes unable to tell the difference between the film and his own life. Strickland uses plenty of tools to show Gilderoy’s feelings of alienation (there are no exterior shots) and loosening grip on reality, but the results are a mixed bag. Some sequences, like one where Gilderoy is mimicking sounds of the night, are executed beautifully in a way where it’s hard to tell what’s real and fake. On the other hand, Strickland makes a big mistake by subtitling all of the Italian in the film which, since Gilderoy can’t speak a word of the language, doesn’t give us the same feeling of confusion or alienation that he has. By the end Berberian Sound Studio dives right off the deep end with a moment similar to Bergman’s Persona, but its abrupt ending doesn’t make for a conclusion that’s too fulfilling. Berberian Sound Studio is definitely unique with some wonderful moments that nail what Strickland is going for, but it’s too uneven to be something truly great.

RATING: 7/10

Berberian Sound Studio

Next up was Here Comes The Devil, a US/Mexican horror film that left me feeling baffled after its screening. It starts off with a graphic sex scene between two women which ends with a machete wielding madman trying to murder one of the women before fleeing to a mountain. Suddenly the focus shifts to a vacationing family who let their son and daughter go hiking up the same mountain. The children don’t come back but are found by the cops the next day. The parents soon notice that their kids seem very distant, and when a check-up at the doctor reveals that the daughter doesn’t have a hymen the mother assumes that they were sexually assaulted by someone. Of course things aren’t that simple, and soon enough the mother starts to believe some sort of evil presence is involved while her husband takes the usual ‘skeptic/rational’ role. At the beginning of Here Comes The Devil I wasn’t enjoying the cheap and cheesy execution. The thing was shot on what looks like a poor DV camera, the compositions were laughable with their extreme close-ups and similarity to comic book panels, and the aggressive sound design was grating. But as it went on I started to warm up to director Adrián García Bogliano’s weird methods. His use of quick zooms and shoddy special effects felt like they came straight out of a student film, but the story kept the film going at a nice momentum. Towards the climax I even started to warm up to some of the absurd framing, but it wasn’t strong enough to salvage too much. Here Comes The Devil may be awful a lot of the time, yet I can’t deny its power at keeping me invested throughout.

RATING: 6.5/10

Here Comes The Devil

NEXT UP: I take on Thomas Vinterberg’s seemingly divisive The Hunt and try to not get seasick while watching Leviathan.

Recap of some of my Tweets from today:

Follow @WayTooIndie for full coverage of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival!

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO: Some fantastic moments but it gets too bogged down in its insanity to be truly great #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 11, 2012

Now in the hot docs cinema waiting for HERE COMES THE DEVIL to start #TIFF12 twitter.com/WayTooIndie/st…

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 11, 2012

HERE COMES THE DEVIL: A very strange movie that almost (Almost!) won me over in the end

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

The staff at Way Too Indie narrows down the Top 10 films that we are most excited for at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. The task of narrowing a list down to only 10 is not an easy one considering that there will be over 300 films playing at the festival. Way Too Indie’s CJ Prince will be there to cover the festival and plans to review some of those that are listed below Listed below are Way Too Indie’s Top 10 Most Anticipated Films playing at Toronto International Film Festival 2012.

The Master (director Paul Thomas Anderson)

I think it is fair to say, even setting aside my complete biased opinion, that P.T. Anderson ranks up there among one of the most prominent American directors of today. That being said, it is easy to see why The Master, his follow up to 2007’s There Will Be Blood, is a highly anticipated film. At the helm as one of the lead characters is an Anderson veteran Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman plays a charismatic intellectual who starts up a faith organization and recruits drifter Joaquin Phoenix. Just from the trailer one can see how berserk Phoenix’s character goes and if anyone is fit to play that role it is Joaquin Phoenix. The other reason The Master is getting a lot of attention is that it is being shown in 70mm widescreen format that is suppose to look drop-dead gorgeous. [Dustin]

Spring Breakers (director Harmony Korine)

No one ever thought that they’d hear the words ‘Selena Gomez in a Harmony Korine film’ in their life, but here we are. The director of films like Trash Humpers, Mister Lonely and this disturbing Black Keys music video, Korine would seem like the last person in the world to team up with stars from Disney and Glee (Vanessa Hudgens, Dianna Agron and Korine’s wife Rachel round out the rest of the female cast). The casting may sound like it came straight out of Hollywood but the plot, about a drug dealer (James Franco aping the look of rapper Riff Raff) who hires the four bikini-clad girls to be his hitmen after they rob a fast food restaurant, sounds bizarre enough to fit in with the rest of Korine’s films. Now, with all of the crazy set photos and news of Skrillex getting involved with the score, Spring Breakers sounds like Korine has managed to capture the zeitgeist. [CJ]

Cloud Atlas (directors Tom Tykwer & Wachowski brothers)

The Wachowskis, directors of the Matrix Trilogy and the underrated Speed Racer, team with Tom Tykwer, director of Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior, team to make this centuries spanning film involving actors playing different roles over the course of those centuries. As soon as the film was announced for TIFF a stunning trailer set to M83’s ‘Outro’ was released. The film looks to be a shoo in for technical awards at next year’s Oscars. It is not known whether or not the film will be a mess, though we’ll have a clearer picture in a couple of weeks. [Blake]

To The Wonder (director Terrence Malick)

It has been rumored that To The Wonder is even more experimental than Terrence Malick’s last film, The Tree Of Life, which seems hard to believe but if true we could be in store for another Malick masterpiece. The film is being billed as a romantic drama about a man who is reconnected with a woman after his marriage falls apart. It will star Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck and Javier Bardem. The only thing that has me a little worried is this will be the first time that Malick has ever released films in consecutive years. [Dustin]

Argo (director Ben Affleck)

The last time Ben Affleck came to TIFF it was for The Town, which went on to snag an Oscar nomination along with a surprisingly big haul of $92 million at the box office. Two years later, Affleck is hoping to repeat his success with Argo. Based on a true story, Argo follows a group of CIA operatives who go to Iran posing as documentary filmmakers in order to free six Americans trapped in the country. Unlike The Town, Affleck only takes on directing and acting duties this time (he doesn’t have a writing credit) but he’s assembled an impressive cast with names like John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Victor Garber and Alan Arkin to name a few. It’s hard to tell if audiences will be interested enough in the story and 70s period setting, but Affleck has proven himself to be a strong enough director that Oscar buzz is building around the film. With a theatrical release right around the corner after its TIFF premiere, it won’t take long before we find out if Argo will be a serious contender in the awards race. [CJ]

Like Someone In Love (director Abbas Kiarostami)

Abbas Kiarostami last wowed audiences with his masterfully crafted Certified Copy starring the lovely French actress Juliette Binoche as a woman walking the Italian country side with a man she may or may not have a past with. Kiarostami’s new film is rumored to be a semi-sequel to Certified Copy. This film takes place in Tokyo and involves a relationship between a young woman and an old man. [Blake]

Room 237 (director Rodney Ascher)

After receiving both high praises and concerns over possible copyright issues, Room 237 made a splash at Sundance Film Festival this year. This documentary aims to explore theories about the hidden meaning in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The three decade old film is still being studied by scholars and hardcore fans as well as debated which is what this documentary shows. Of course, this documentary will only appeal to people who enjoyed The Shinning but you can count me in as it is my all-time favorite horror film. [Dustin]

Leviathan (director George P. Cosmatos)

Directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel focus their cameras on the ocean in Leviathan, a new documentary about a fishing boat. Castaing-Taylor and Paravel spent two months aboard as the ship traveled around catching fish, but their goal wasn’t to do their own version of The Deadliest Catch. Sharing multiple GoPro cameras with the fishermen on board, footage was captured from the bowels of the ship to under the ocean. We talked about the incredible trailer on here earlier, and the film received rave reviews (along with many walkouts due to feelings of nausea) at its premiere in Locarno. Leviathan looks like a truly original experience that will take its toll on viewers mentally and physically, but hopefully it should be something no one will ever forget. [CJ]

Berberian Sound Studio (director Peter Strickland)

I have a soft spot for Italian horror films. This new film by Peter Strickland looks to go behind the scenes of these horror movies to see how they are made. The film looks to be about a British sound engineer (Toby Jones) who is hired by an Italian director to do the sound for his newest film. However, it seems that life soon begins to imitate art as his job starts to get deadly. The film looks to be a great throwback to the 70s filmmaking era, especially the Horror genre. This could be a sleeper hit in the making. [Blake]

Penance (director Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa established himself early in the 2000s with the terrifying horror film Pulse. Since then he spent several years trying to re-capture his success at scaring people with films like Loft and Retribution but his output was uneven. In 2008 Kurosawa (no relation to legendary director Akira Kurosawa) changed gears with Tokyo Sonata, a drama about a family in crisis after the father is laid off. It was another masterpiece from Kurosawa, but he hasn’t made another film since then. Now, four years later, he makes up for his lost time with the 4.5 miniseries Penance. Taking place over 15 years, the miniseries follows a woman who tries to get vengeance for the unsolved murder of her daughter. Kurosawa’s filmography may be uneven, but he’s proven himself capable of making truly great films. Hopefully Penance will be the sign of a terrific comeback. [CJ]