MOVIE REVIEW: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage continues my enjoyable high off of Dario Argento films. This one, being his first is an interesting start, because for his debut film, Argento already displays the talents of his one-of-a-kind style. Unfortunately, as a thriller, I found it quite underwhelming in comparison with the intensity of Argento's later giallo and supernatural horror works.

Set in Rome (no surprise!), a young writer encounters a woman being brutally attacked in an avant-garde art gallery by a black-cloaked figure. Unwittingly involved as a witness to attempted murder, he decides to take matters into his own hands and solve the mystery on his own. A ton of red herrings ensues and some unsettling, but not exactly scary "kills" occur, until the killer is finally revealed. Rather than any reaction of shock, mine was disappointingly dulled to more of a rhetorical "oh, really?"

Perhaps it's unfair for me to judge the start of a healthy artistic career as inferior in comparison to later work, but as it stands, Bird didn't grip me as much as say Suspiria and Tenebre did. Both were relatively successful films later on in Argento's career, so I'm glad this one was enough of a hit for him that it allowed him to expand his creative wings. The relatively mild tension, somewhat aimless plot, and flimsy intimidation that the film exuded though, just happened to make it less of an enjoyable experience for me. It's a good thing some of Argento's later films fared much better.

5/10