Quattro Mosche di Velluto Grigio (Four Flies on Grey Velvet) (1971, Dario Argento)


Dario Argento giallo genre (mystery, crime) established his reputation throughout his career and helped him to demonstrate an interest in the horror films with psychoanalytic and sexual thematic structures. The nightmarish qualities of his films provide the audience with intellectual support and attitudes the audience arrive at on the screening. I think that Freud and Jung provide Argento a belief system to draw on. Not only is the female protagonist in Four Flies on Grey Velvet schizophernic and sexually abused character, but she represents the dark and mysterious sides of life. Her husband is more stable and sexually healthy. Argento's film narrative seems to suggest that psychoanalytic ideas give him an intellectual credibility to create. The visual style of the film guarantees psychoanalytical reading of the film. The lightings, the point of view shots, the murderous gazes and the dream sequences all reveal the potentiality for psychological deciphering of the film. In the film, the unconscious represents supernatural power and monstrousness of human mind.