Of all of the filmmakers I’ve gotten to know over the years, Matthew Saliba is probably my one of my 2-3 favorite to talk to over the years. Part of that is because he’s helped me dive head-first into kaiju cinema, but it’s always been interesting to see how he dives into filmmakers and film genres a lot of my other friends and filmmaker friends don’t really watch on a regular basis, as evidenced by our discussion on Jess Franco last year. I’m glad we were able to discuss Franco’s films before I watched three of his earlier short films, because it helped get me attuned into the style of the material he’s exploring in some of the films. You can listen to our first discussion on the Sonic Cinema Podcast below:
I listened back to the first part of this discussion as I began to write this piece, not just to remind myself of what Matthew told me about his fourth short film, “Eroticide”, but also some of what he hinted at with his previous short films. Listening back, I not only feel vindicated in what resonated with me in those earlier films, but also think he was being maybe a bit coy about the personal nature of those films (which admittedly, were not among the subjects of that first interview) in hinting solely at the genres and styles that influenced them. With “Eroticide” as the ultimate expression of the emotional and psychological strain he has found himself under over the years, one can see a progression of mindset that brings us to uncomfortable, but powerful, emotional truths that sometimes can even give us insight into ourselves. We recently did a deeply personal, in-depth look at his work for the Sonic Cinema Podcast that you’ll be able to hear later in the month.
Matthew’s first film that is available, “The Manipulator and the Subservient”, feels like a first film in the ways it very much lifts from direct influences, but it also has a voice with something to say. In that initial interview, Matthew acknowledged his interest in fetish culture, and belonging in it, and that’s something that comes through in this film. Saliba stars as a young man who is on the outside looking in of his love’s life, and enters a fugue state, wherein he imagines a life where they are together. Unfortunately, with any dream, reality eventually creeps back in. Listening to Saliba discuss this film made me rethink my initial assessment of this having humiliation as a key thematic idea, although even then, longing and sadness for a life the main character is unable to attain was the dominant emotional pull of the film, and it continues to be so here. The film is very much inspired by David Lynch on a visual and structural level, and that works to accentuate the emotions in this film. Right away, Saliba established himself as a good storyteller, and someone who wears their emotions on their sleeves almost as nakedly as they are at times onscreen.
In 2008, Matthew did what I think a lot of young filmmakers dream of doing, but would never really do, and remade one of his favorite films. But his “Vampyros Lesbos” is not simply a direct remake of Jess Franco’s infamous film like Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho”, or a riff on a personal favorite like Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns”. In his take on Franco, the initial hook of a woman seduced out of her marriage, and into the bed of a dominant female vampire remains, but turns into a look at erotic tension and violent revenge. Visually, Saliba takes as much inspiration from Chris Marker’s legendary “La Jette” as he does from Franco, and exploitation horror as a whole, in creating his work out of still photography rather than filmed scenes. The result is probably his most sublime visual experience, and a prime example that just because you’re remaking a classic, you don’t have to be slavishly faithful to it. I think Franco would have been flattered by the tribute Matthew creates.
“Amy in the Attic” is probably the most unnerving film of Saliba’s, and if I’m being honest, I’m perfectly fine never watching it again. Inspired by Italian exploitation films in a very direct way, the titular Amy offers herself up to be a slave for her four friends when a get together seems to be heading south. Visually, this film is as refined as “Vampyros Lesbos,” but not in a lush, lustful sheen, but in how it gives off the stench of a film you’d watch at a grindhouse, right up to his unforgivable use of Time News Roman font. (What a sociopath move.) Oh, and there’s degrading sex with Amy in blackface, which is as uncomfortable as anything I’ve watched. It goes with the territory of this type of film, and these characters are not given a moral center, so we don’t expect them to behave well, but it’s one of the things that turned me off to the film. It’s another complete vision from Matthew, but it leaves me feeling hollow.
As hollow as I felt after “Amy in the Attic”, “Eroticide” continues to fill me with sadness and painful humanity. The story of a love destroyed by the manipulations of a jealous ex-lover, and the lack of confidence of a man who doesn’t feel like he deserves love, “Eroticide” brings a lot of Saliba’s previous ideas and themes to a story that feels not only fully formed in what it is trying to say, but filled with regret in how the past played out, and not terribly optimistic about the future, after all the hope is depleted from Yan’s life. In our discussion, which will be released next week, Saliba discusses how “Eroticide” and “The Master and the Subservient” act as bookends to his work thus far, and that is true, but it’s interesting how the earlier film still feels a bit hopeful towards its main character’s future, even if reality has set back in, whereas in “Eroticide”, Yan feels as lost as ever, even as Matthew seemed to feel hopeful about his own life, at the time.
I cannot wait to see what Saliba has in store for his viewers next. I’m grateful his earlier work has been unearthed, not only in how it gives us a fuller picture of Saliba as a filmmaker, but as an individual. If you want a sneak peek of what he is coming up with next, be sure to listen to our in depth, deeply personal discussion on the Sonic Cinema Podcast next week. I think it will bring you a bit closer to him as an individual, as well as an artist. I know I felt that way after recording it.
Thanks for listening.
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
