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SHOCK
(1977; dir. Mario Bava + [uncred] Lamberto
Bava, story + scr. LB, Francesco Barbieri, Paolo Brigenti + Dardano
Sacchetti)
Camera traces from seaside (typical Bava [père]
opening/setting, at hypnagogic mtg btwn sea/land un/conscious) to
grassy gate (similar borderline; cf [especially] Black
Sunday’s recurrent threshold imgry) to untended
house (see Bay of Blood’s
similar), down into basement (psychological depths + wall behind
which lies unfaceable secret; cf trad Bava apertures,
danger now in not seeing) + up stairs (slightly higher level of
consciousness w/i isolated interior, aka dream) to open fridge +
dripping, stagnant sink (history abandoned in medias res);
door opens on living room (place of mental activity: dream-theater,
shot thru cobweb veil à la hymen) where sheet pulled off couch by
unseen hand (another veil removed, drama on loss of [sexual] innocence
aka joy of filmmaking for end-of-career Mario,
+ initiation for just-beginning son) as movers enter (porting new
mental furnishings [from conscious life] in to mingle w/ established
old [archetypes + familial appurtenances]) + mama Dora
calls in son Marco (similar names rounded
out by dead dad Carlo:
all characters facets of single dreaming personality), both she
+ 2nd husband Bruno (not-the-father: psubstitute constructed by
fantasy to play out taboos not permitted by superego) unable to
promise "forever" residence (all ephemeral figures in transitional
personality/ies).
Dora finds huge ceramic Hand in couch cushions
(occulted symbol of agency whose relevance 2B
disclosed later) she cradles in arms like infant (outsized reality
she eventually to birth into world) before shelving (elephant in
room put on display but never addressed), pausing w/ Bruno for exposition
(out of house 7 yrs – Marco’s age: leaving there his birth
+ vice versa; origin of similar traumas) before he called to help
boy rig tree swing (elevation/suspension [à la summer vacation +
dreaming mind, on leave from school/rational activity]; cf similar
swing-ers in Kill Baby…Kill!,
4 Times That Night
+ 5 Dolls for an August Moon);
Marco tucked in (under mobile of 3 figures hanging from swing/trapeze,
all in limbo of unresolved history) tho still awake (unquiet souvenir
of trauma given flesh in dream; tranquilized kid in trunk from previous
Bava aka dir’s career given one last, tragic airing, à
la Dora’s pursuant dialog w/ Bruno on return to house [read:
studio] like opening up painful period of life), while D+B christen
house (lovemaking suggestively "witnessed" by M the primal scene,
when child recognizes own independence from family romance –
here psychic seeing, aka intuition of separation à
la epochal birth), Hand shifting on boy’s angry reaction (similarly
unrestful house his mind, intercourse intrusion of adult masculinity
on/into insular mother-world) + camera tracing path of her eyes
in direction of pilot Bruno (rational consciousness)’s plane
to New York (he "always flying off just when needed": her episodic
bouts w/ insanity).
While playing in yard (natural setting, for instinctual
activity), Marco humps mother (not-the-father modeling behavior
for precocious boy, as dir/co-dir son), cut to park puppet play
(aka film: civilized, social context for primitive private) of Death
taking Maiden to Land of Darkness (boy’s fear of non-Virgin
Mother, isolated house/mind again doubling for Bava’s fascist-past
Italy), prompting mother+son’s cliffside discussion (on edge
- of "dknss," un/consciousness, + emotional development) on "Why
dsn’t real daddy come back to see me?" (past seemingly behind,
old img of masculinity making way for 80s Male) + she sez he "liked
to travel far away" (euphemism for his drug trips; also, visionary
Mario’s mental meanderings) + eventually just went Beyond (as
dir’s career), tho kept alive w/i (parable of real world’s
absorption into memory + abstraction, boy’s longing the melancholy
of all people in exile from apprehensible World); sleeping w/ her
that night (in communion w/ unconscious Other), M psychokinetically
prompts swing (consolation prize of manipulating reality mentally/remotely,
à la dir/film-world) then caresses mom’s hair (feeling new
power emerging aka sexuality), his hand transubstantiating into
rotted father’s (à la similarly grotesque/outsized Sculpture;
her ecstasy Lamberto mimicking dad's ability to move audience).
Bruno returns (mediating consciousness + dream-censor
following taboo-exploration) w/ promise of puppy being sent from
NY (physicality to return from other side of unconscious ocean;
never to occur) w/ hair like mother’s (pet trad steppingstone
from mommylove to experience o/t world), in time for cocktail party
(when various aspects of dreaming personality – unseen for
some time – come out to mingle) where diabolical Bava-lookalike
insinuates self on Dora + former shrink Spellini (trickster revealing
bashful or repressed truth; implication doc "prescribing" for Dora
[as following remark on Carlo’s being "on the needle"] suggestion
of sex, implying "cure" for pathology in union of un/consciousness
aka dream/party itself) + Marco fumes at mom’s smooching Bruno
(intuited primal scene realized), leading to his "Mama, I have to
kill you" (inverted Oedipus for boy more drawn to spirit-world than
real); lights go out (consciousness flagging on eruption of disturbing
information) + she cuts self on broken china (inside coming out
on shattering of façade), later watching him on swing outside (childhood
in the balance + uncertain future) then not-there (he cipher for
interior concern: own back+forth mental state), x-cut w/ metronome
(Bava going all Eisenstein as Dora slips out of reality)
then hazing into laughing piano (unplayed thru'out movie: the maestro
mocked by own neglected instrument ie trademark gel lighting, spfx
+ other accoutrements of atmosphere), moon, hypo + seashore (fe/male
+ mtg btwn two, recalling pseudo-Bava’s "prescription" innuendo).
At piano next morning, finds razorblade btwn keys
(cut à la china + preceding coffeepot-burn: increasing lack of facility
w/ everyday reality [more Bava insecurity in new horrorfilm landscape])
+ Marco emerging from basement (unlocked: contents of unconscious
free to spill into consciousness), later finding him there sobbing
by wall (primitive sense-perception indicating location of disturbance)
+ own slashed underwear in his drawer (lashing out at not-genitalia
anger at fem/mother’s sexuality for child preferring insularity
o/t womb) awa broken photo frame of she + Bruno (shattered img of
unity), ultimately tripping on rake in yard (hallucinating tines
as clawing Hand emerging from ground the groping child [issue of
own womb] shredding her creativity à la panty in film partly guided
by Lamberto’s effort to modernize dad's work); in basement,
Marco projects lamp on wall (making own crude puppet-play, he creator
of imgs in unconscious depths illuminating buried mysteries) thru
Hand-shaped stencil (indicating location of her handiwork,
Bava using medium to reveal something about Mother Italy) made by
cutting Bruno out of picture (false-father country’s hijacked
history [cf Rabid Dogs] + lack of moral guidance allowing
same), then clips Bruno’s head off photo (dreamer’s separation
of mind + body in subterranean depths).
As Bruno investigates Wall (as tho directed there
by Marco’s "projection"; actually, dream-censor inspecting
own job), Dora wakes to find bureau moving to block door (reaction
to Bruno’s snooping, she guarding egress of secrets) + disembodied
Hand w/ boxcutter (menaced by img of own deed; threat also of her
losing head à la Brunopic) slashing her gown (tearing fabric of
reality awa veil of amnesia [cf other shades + à la underwear])
when she goes to window to find - brick wall! (element of self secreted
in basement, impeding vision); next morning (as tho previous night
– as party freakout – never happened: mind phasing in
+ out of states of consciousness), strap on window frays (as rational
grip) + shutter nearly severs her hand (real-izing similarly shuttered
dream-window), Marco later rocking swing w/ Bruno’s tacked-on
headshot (creating turbulence for actual flight: kid now manipulating
reality for "piloting" dir-father), "grounding" B (consc’ss
planting feet on earth – miles + miles away: she on own, now).
Takes son to Spellini (not the not-the-father she
had secret/fictitious relationship w/, bringing out truths NTF
Bruno obscuring), who analyzes his 1st drawing (as similar img-makers
own work, pics à la Bava père’s storyboards for co-dir
fils) of fruitful tree (early career) against 2nd (kid on
bed facing away from mother artist turning back on muse [denial
of former creative, erotic energy]) + cites her earlier "shock"
treatment (of which film/dream figurative replay), she averring
son go-btwn (à la transitory pilot Bruno) uniting past + present
(symptom indication of pathology rooted in history) + he reassuring
"if you can accept past you can face the future peacefully w/ yr
husband + child" ("prescription" to which Bava pseud alluded
intercourse btwn all aspects/phases of self); while Marco pulls
stuffing out of effigy throat (reenacting primal action + intuiting
future: ritual uniting time frames [tho prob’ly not what doc
had in mind]), mom cuts hand on med bottle ("cure" coming w/ cost)
+ slips out of reality (à la party after china-injury: inside coming
out irrationality bubbling to surface [coffee-pot boiling over morning
after fête]) till he confronts her: "Why’d you kill Papa?"
(reverse-primal scene, where child thinks father "killing" mother:
reason he stuck in eternal boyhood), triggering
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