Monday, January 25, 2010

THAS: Scene from Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors

THAS PRESENTS...

A Scene from Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (1993)



A lovely scene, its sophistication lying in how the camera's gentle movements and revolutions are spurred by the nimbleness of the scene's staging.

"I think I met him, eh, um--- met him at some embassy thing."
---
"Wait. You're a, uh, a diplomat?"

"No, not quite," laughs a High Ambassador of Sexual Congress, international and unambiguously bicameral.
---





The brittleness of the interaction between the desirous but conspiring older woman and the kittenish younger one (and her aloof, innocent tolerance), is expertly staged, knowingly calculated.

"I won't be a minute. Make yourself at home."

---
"It's okay."




"Don't you find the minarets absolutely... enchanting?"


Now let's all just take a moment to give a big hand to costuming! (Credit where it's due: Rona Doron, still prolific in the Israeli film industry)

A Coptic hymn is heard carrying through Alexandria, but then gives way on the soundtrack to a string chamber piece as she glimpses remnants of aging European licentiousness.




"Have you ever read de Sade?"
---
"Isn't that where the word 'sadist' comes from?"

And a perfectly pitched chortle of a negation erupts from her throat. (No making fun of Zoe Trilling!)


"Here, have this... as a memento of our first meeting."
---
"Welcome to your new home. And our meeting. And to freedom."