Equal parts paranoid thriller and loving tribute to the disappearing art of analog sound recording, Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio takes us on a nightmarish voyage behind the scenes of 1970s Italian giallo cinema. Summoned to an Italian studio to record the audio effects for a bloody horror opus, meek British sound engineer Gilderoy (Toby Jones) quickly finds his genteel disposition clashing with that of his alternately boisterous, genial and hostile Italian hosts. As Gilderoy becomes unhealthily submerged in his work, the simulated aural violence (snapping celery stalks standing in for cracking bones, pulverized watermelons for squishing craniums) starts to take on a cruel edge — and as tension in the claustrophobic studio mounts, it becomes clear that the film is corrupting Gilderoy's fragile psyche. A Kafkaesque meta-horror tale set in the lost annals of cinematic history, Berberian Sound Studio plunges us into the blurry meeting point between waking life and nightmares. For information about tickets and screen times click here.
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