Arnaud Rebotini

The news of a new film by master Dario Argento cannot help but stir emotions for those who have followed him since his 1970 debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. After too many disappointing - if not downright embarrassing - releases, it would certainly be naïve to have great expectations. What is likely to be the final work of the Italian horror master seems a step forward compared to lackluster efforts like Giallo or Dracula 3D, showing an Argento still stubbornly tied to a conception of cinema rooted in the 1970s, with the usual flaws that mark much of his filmography (wooden acting, non-existent psychological depth, various plot inconsistencies) and a handful of scenes that faintly recall his glory days.

Watching Dark Glasses, it becomes clear that - amid this jumble of self-quotations (from Suspiria to Deep Red), almost always implausible dialogues, Roman chase scenes, murders, and escapes through the woods—there is at least something that, however tenuously, holds it all together. What stitches the film’s loose ends into something resembling cohesion is the soundtrack by French musician Arnaud Rebotini, a leading figure in European electronic music. His typically synthetic style, with basslines in constant, swirling crescendos, feels unusual for an Argento film. The connection to the historic Goblin soundtracks is minimal. Simonetti’s band once burst into the maestro’s masterpieces with such overwhelming force that the films almost seemed to accompany the music rather than the other way around. Similarly, Keith Emerson’s classical pianism in Inferno carried the unmistakable stamp of a virtuoso, a true showman at the keyboard.

Rebotini, instead, enters Argento’s filmography as a kind of tailor, carefully stitching together loosely connected scenes and giving the work a sense of unity. He transports the Roman director’s gory worlds from rock concert halls to dance clubs (see the title track), maintaining both the horror atmosphere and the dance-floor energy. Rebotini stays firmly rooted in 80s–90s electronic traditions, with nods to other iconic soundtracks of that era - from Nightmare on Elm Street to The Terminator, The X-Files, and even Carpenter’s Escape from New York - updating them with pulsing club rhythms. The most energetic tracks stand out in the film, from the title track and its variations to Serpenti e cacciatori and Inseguimento notturno. When the music shifts into more atmospheric territory, Rebotini especially shines in the film’s opening sequence with Un’eclissi su Roma.

A nostalgic soundtrack, inevitably so in a film by the ultra-nostalgic Argento. Nevertheless, the French composer gives the film a soul and a connective thread (a synth sound that towers over every scene in seamless continuity) that Dark Glasses would otherwise have lacked - effectively saving the swan song of the Roman maestro.

12/03/2022