“Completely missed.” This is the many times read comments about the Opera ghost seen by Dario Argento. In 1998, the master of the Giallo stuck in taking up the myth created by Gaston Leroux. Why not? There is something to mix well -struck murders there – taking over the brutal ghost -, originality of the decor and its behind the scenes, even a touch of eroticism with the beautiful Christine who could get worse.
The majority judgment is severe but just. Already, with the help of Gérard Brach in the script, the veteran opts to add a dimension to the ghost: his intimate link with the rats, which raised it because he is here thrown into public waters. Funny addition, which gives a fairly grotesque scene of mutual caresses by Julian Sands and his languid rodents. Dario Argento features his violent dead, an impaler on a stalagmite or a rats hunter gathered by his own mower; But it does not use the particular framework of the opera. And he entrusts his daughter Asia a character of little light Christine, quite foolish, who ends up in incessant whining.
The ethereal work of Ronny Yu, his last in China
The game with the specific context of the theater, the bridges on the scene, the strings that experience space everywhere, cogs and panels, Ronny Yu plays it abundantly. Three before Dario Argento, he delivered The Phantom Loverhis latest film made from China before he went to Hollywood to do more or less recommendable things: The master of arms, Chucky’s fiancée or Freddy against Jason – In the latter, we find Robert Englund in Freddy, after his own incarnation of the Phantom of the Opera.
Ronny Yu adapts Gaston Leroux, but also a Chinese film from 1936 that was inspired by it. With him, it is love that dominates the entire drama. Exit Faustthe Central Opera revolves around Romeo and Juliet. There is no Christine: the heroine, now crazy, was a notable girl promised to a moron. She is in love with the then theater star, which Leslie Cheung embodies, singer (that counts, here) and actor of immense popularity in particular thanks to our wild years, Goodbye my concubine or Happy Togetherwhich will end his days in 2003.
It is the man, this time, who sings. Ronny Yu said “never having set foot in the opera”, and indeed, these are deliciously syrupy love songs in Mandarin. If the ghost is disfigured – option what Dario Argento has not retained – it is also the price of love. Father’s emissary, who wants to fit his daughter to obtain a right to build, threw him acid in the face of the star and burn the theater. 10 years later, a troop invests the premises and its main actor meets the ghost … Expert Léonard Haddad spoke of “one of the aesthetic summits of Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s”. A work indeed fascinating by its radical choices, especially colors and amplitude of the camera.
Quotes are taken from the DVD edition of The Phantom Loverdirected by Christophe Gans, at Metropolitan.
The ghost of the opera Darion Argento is available on DVD Chez Tf1.
For the time being, the two films are not offered by a platform.