The Chauvel Cinematheque's mini season of popular Italian cinema concludes this week with a rare theatrical screening of Mario Bava's acclaimed gothic horror film from 1960, Black Sunday (La Maschera Del Demonio) starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson and Arturo Dominici.Bava's first film as a director after a distinguished career as a cinematographer is a landmark of the horror film and the perfect foil for the World Youth Day celebrations, dealing as it does with the Catholic Church's historical oppression of women.
A 17th century witch and her lover are executed with a spiked devil's mask. Two centuries later they are revived and return to destroy her cursed family. The story verges on fable, while the images and prowling camera have the power of delicate nightmare with moments of rarely surpassed beauty and horror. Steele's double role as the virginal Katia and the sexual witch presents the only two options allowed for women in such religious imagery: Madonna and whore. The ending suggests the possibility of merger.
“One of the cinema’s preeminent examples of gothic horror.” Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness
“An elegant and disturbing film that discloses the strange beauty of horror.” David J. Hogan, Dark Romance
Screening with the film is Bruno Bozzeto's animated short, Self-Service, that satirises Prohibition and the madness of a petroleum-based economy.
Don't miss this timely and provocative intrusion of the past into the present - this week at cinematheque.
1 comment:
This sounds great, I can't wait
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