Early in Berberian Sound Studio the credits roll, not for the film you're watching but for the fictional film within a film, The Equestrian Vortex. From the first frame it is immediately clear that we're in the realm of Italian giallo horror movies. It's also the first and last visual motif of the genre depicted on screen. As the title implies, Berberian Sound Studio is all about the audio, as if follows the work of sound engineer Gilderoy (an excellent Toby Jones) as he provides the effects for a horror movie which the director insists "isn't a horror movie". People are stabbed, tortured and drowned, but the audience sees this all from Gilderoy's perspective of knives slicing open cabbages or tearing carrots from their stems. Writer-director Peter Strickland explores every angle of the cluttered studio spaces while his refusal to show the action of the film Gilderoy is working on elevates the intensity of the character's increasing detachment from reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7zIfUwwoQ0
