Capital Celluloid - Day 171: Wednesday June 22

Inferno (Argento, 1980): ICA Cinema, 8.45pm
Also showing: Saturday 25th 8.45pm

With the work of Pablo Bronstein currently housed in, around and through the ICA, the gallery turns to some of cinema’s master builders to observe human characters who are possessed by architecture and living in the mansions of their minds.

In his groundbreaking book Nightmare Movies horror writer Kim Newman describes Dario Argento's Inferno as a "masterpiece".

"Every sequence is a meticulously orchestrated mini-symphony of camera movement, stylised lighting, sound effects, music and found objects," writes Newman, who describes the director's break with the traditional forms of movie making.

"Although nothing rally happens in [these scenes], Argento's absolute film approach turns them into set pieces. Other directors would have cut these sequences back and conveyed the essential plot information in a few brief cuts, but Argento makes ordinary events mysterious, erotic or horrifying. Previously, the murders in Argento's films (particularly the first death in Suspiria) have been set pieces; Inferno is all set pieces, and thus all of a piece."

Here is the trailer.

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