In the current cycle of conceptual death of Italian cinema, where most revert to mere trite, director Domiziano Cristopharo proposes a new authorial cinema, his own, designated for the few. He therefore avails himself of the only channel that befits him, namely the independent channel, a harbinger of experimentation and expression and which sometimes allows it to result in the real arthouse film. As precisely in the case of Doll Syndrome.
The new chapter in Cristopharo's trilogy, the second after Purgatorio by Red Krokodil, brings Inferno to the stage, to guide the viewer this time through the meanders of mental corruptions and sexual deviations, in a perverse circle of obsessive paraphilias and sadism.
"The curtain opens on one of the most realistic filmic transpositions of psychological depravity ever made, flooding the stage with human frailty and flawed nature.
Cristopharo's executioners are at the same time victims of such imperfection: such is the characterization given to them that it leads the viewer to doubt personal dogmas; to reevaluate the responsibilities of such perpetrators.
The audience, dumbfounded, ends up passively accepting the character, naked and raw as it is".
Doll Syndrome's utopian theatrical career ends here, as this new effort by Domiziano Cristopharo may never be shown, at the director's own behest, on the screens of the general public. Once again, the director has chosen the path of artistic autarky (aided by a brilliant staff), bravely putting his own freedom of expression before the rigors of the market.
The result is an outrageous and cynical film that justifies with obscene effrontery the desire to make a different kind of cinema, always naturally and without any forcing.
A Doll Syndrome is precluded from theatrical distribution not only therefore because it is dedicated to an elitist and intelligent audience but also because of the outrage this symbolizes for the vast majority of ordinary viewers. Reinforcing my thesis is the explicit (frontal) ejaculation of which we are forced spectators, a few minutes into the film, and which could metaphorically represent the director's denial of today's society. A metaphor that could almost take the form of a key to reading the entire work.
Those who decide to prepare for viewing Doll Syndrome should keep in mind that this film is of such stark realism as to be disturbing. Before proceeding with the plot, I would like to point out that the film features acts of masturbation, ejaculations, urination, intercourse, and an anal inspection. Among other things.
Although what has been said may be insulting in itself, Domiziano Cristopharo's narrative style is never vulgar or an end in itself. The perversions here are collected and incorporated into his main character who, disturbed, is almost analyzed, with detachment.
Just as it did with the protagonist of Red Krokodil.
The story is that of ordinary man, apparently integrated with society, and his sexual drive toward a girl glimpsed at a bar. An elusive smile on her part stages in the man a chain of sexual desires and perversions that will find outlet through a fetish. His unhealthy inner balance will soon be shattered by the discovery of the existence of the other, that is, a concrete male presence in her life.
Doll Syndrome thus travels on the tracks of evil afflicting its protagonist, whose psyche is confined to a perverse, hellish dimension. Paying the price is his own body, which is not allowed to amalgamate with the mind. A body that moves as if guided by wires in a life that is not its own. Self-harm, complacent, thus becomes the only means of associating the flesh with the spirit, instead relegated to the cage of a personal hell.
The body, enslaved, becomes only a means to satisfy the pleasure engendered by perversions. Whether it is He, She, the other or the doll, it does not matter.
Under this view, Doll Syndrome also takes full significance in a religious context in which therefore the reference to the place of the Afterlife is even more configured.
However, the film also boasts profound critiques against machismo, anti-militarism and machismo.
This is a complete work with profound meanings, which can only bring to light Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom. In Domiziano Cristopharo's personal vision of Inferno, each of the three circles of Salò is well configured, which would find in Doll Syndrome not only an analytical representation but also a proper temporal placement.
The merits of such a masterpiece, even more so when considered in the overall vision of this, sublime future trilogy, obviously cannot go to Cristopharo alone as the film shines with an enviable crew.
Doll Syndrome was written by Andrea Cavaletto, a former collaborator of the director on, among others, the screenplay for the episode The Maelzel Chess Player of the choral horror P.O.E. Poetry of Eerie.
Attention can only fall, once again, on Cristopharo's chosen star. Just as Brock Madson was amazing in Red Krokodil, here Tiziano Cella is a standout.
The lead actor embodies one of the most difficult roles an artist can deal with: the pervert. Titian Cella does not relent for a moment and gains credibility frame by frame, until the viewer loses the thin line between fiction and reality.
Also very good were the rehearsals of Aurora Kostova, borrowed from theatrical mimics, and Yuri Antonosante, who was also credible in the small role dedicated to him.
Doll Syndrome then boasts a sound carpet that, in spite of everything, succeeds in the task of softening the outrages presented to us, even lending it a veiled poetic note. All thanks to The Fluorescent Christ and Jarman.
Those who, after seeing Red Krokodil, were anxiously awaiting Cristopharo's new work aware that this would be the Inferno of his trilogy, and that the first chapter was itself little surpassable, are now faced with a film that goes beyond expectations.
As much as we were prepared for Doll Syndrome, we were not prepared enough.
Domitian has crossed the line this time, but we are sure that he is already ready to repeat himself.
