We can’t end the week with more exciting news. Dario Argento, probably the most notorious filmmaker of the Giallo genre, is returning this year with a new horror and mystery thriller, Black Glasses (2022). And after reading the premise excitement is taking over us, it seems to have everything we need! Diana, a young woman who lost her sight, finds a guide in a Chinese boy named Chin. Together they will track down a dangerous killer through the darkness of Italy. The movie will have its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, Berlinale 2022.
The screenplay for Black Glasses (2022) has been shelved since 2002 when the production company that was supposed to back up the film filed for bankruptcy. It is set in Rome, where a serial killer has strangled three prostitutes with cello rope. The Cellist’s last rope is destined for Diana, a luxury escort who frequents the hotels of Via Veneto. One night, the maniac chases driving a van and rams her, sending her crashing into another car. She awakens in the hospital, shrouded in darkness. The diagnosis is final: she lost her sight in the crash. Rita, a young woman from the Blind Society, helps Diana with her first steps in the darkness and her new life; in the meantime, the police investigate, unsuccessfully. But it won’t stop there. The Cellist must finish his work. Diana, helped by Chinese orphan Chin, can only try to escape. The cat and mouse game has just begun.
A pure Giallo story.
The two titans of the genre, writer and director Dario Argento and writer Franco Ferrini, join forces once again as they did in some of the classics Phenomena (1985), Opera (1987), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), and Two Evil Eyes (1990), which was co-directed by George A. Romero. Argento also produced and presented some other titles written by Ferrini and directed by other big names of the scene like Lamberto Bava’s Demons (1985) and its sequel Demons 2 (1986), and Michele Soavi’s The Church (1989).
In Black Glasses (2022), Ilenia Pastorelli plays the main role of Diana, accopanied by the essential Asia Argento. Together with them, Maria Rosaria Russo, Guglielmo Favilla, Paola Sambo, Andrea Gherpelli, Andrea Zhang, Tiffany Zhou, Gennaro Iaccarino, Gianluca Gugliarelli, and Gladys Robles also star.
Dario Argento has also been responsible for other essential titles in the genre including The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971), Deep Red (1975), Tenebrae (1982), and The Three Mothers trilogy consisting of Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), and Mother of Tears (2007). His last movie to date was a new view of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula 3D (2012).
The Berlinale 2022 will take place from February 10-20. Other notorious films to participate in the festival are Peter Flinth’s Against the Ice (2022), Graham Moore’s The Outfit (2022), Andrew Dominik’s I Know This Much Is True (2020), and Quentin Dupieux’s Incroyable mais vrai (aka Incredible But True) (2022).
