The Sweet Sound of Death | movie | 1965 | Official Featurette - video Dailymotion

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Pablo is in love with Dominique, whom he wants to marry. The girl leads them to a cemetery, where she convinces Pablo th | dG1fMlgtVGZhbllodk0

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00:00Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.

00:06When we review Spanish horrors of the 60s then it tends to be that high camp Euro-Gothic that I personally love,

00:14exemplified by the films of Paul Naschy, but there is more going on.

00:19The Sweet Sound of Death or La La Mada, apologies for pronunciation,

00:24which you can stream on Amazon, is a low-budget ghost story that, initially at least,

00:29feels a million miles from that familiar world of castles and scantily clad vampires.

00:36In fact, the vibe is far more towards the French New Wave as we meet young lovers Dominique and Pablo,

00:45a relatively early role in the storied and still very much active career of Emilio Gutierrez Caba.

00:53But the dialogue is more morbid than the romance suggests.

00:57– I'm attracted. – To bullfights? – No, I meant to death.

01:02Setting up what is very much the theme of the film.

01:05– Love and death.

01:07And Dominique extracts a strange promise from her boyfriend.

01:10– The first one who dies must come back to earth, from the beyond.

01:15I don't think it's a spoiler to reveal what happens when Dominique takes a plane journey,

01:20although the way in which it happens is the most original and arresting moment in the film.

01:33As the sound leaves Pablo's world and...

01:51But, as the distraught Pablo tries to learn if his beloved is amongst the survivors, he gets a call from her.

01:57– I'll be expecting you on our bench in the park. We'll pretend nothing has happened.

02:02She says that but...

02:05– You see I'm really dead. – Come on, don't make jokes like that. Not around here.

02:11She was always morbid so Pablo is happy to write this off.

02:16– You're not dead my precious. No more dead than I am.

02:21But strange events make him look closer.

02:23– She was killed.

02:25Despite a few evocative shots, the film suffers for a dreary midsection that did almost make me switch off

02:32as this becomes a very standard investigation.

02:35– She's alive professor. She hasn't been buried.

02:40But do stick with it as the gothic chiller you might have been expecting earlier suddenly arrives.

02:46– And we've all been expecting you.

02:48When Pablo meets his prospective in-laws and we're into the nightmare shadows of early Mario Bava,

02:56as the film performs some last-minute twists and misdirects.

03:00– Let me out of here! Let me out of here!

03:04And even a very weird jump shock.

03:10The film has a creepy opening and a creepy closing.

03:13– I'll be waiting for you.

03:16But very different flavours of creepy that feel almost like two different films.

03:20– Now the truth.

03:22If you told me this was too short, stuck together, I'd believe it.

03:26But as it is, I kind of like it as a grab bag of influences, one minute gothic, the next philosophical.

03:34– That isn't love Dominique, it's infatuation with eternity.

03:38One minute new wave.

03:40– I'm in love with all the Spaniards I see.

03:42– Just with one.

03:43The next old world, from stately home to cheap apartment.

03:48– Pablo, I'd like to have a child wouldn't you?

03:53A scene that is definitely quoting the opening of Psycho.

03:56Though there are lots of familiar tropes, the tone is so up and down that they never feel predictable.

04:02– You can't go on a night like this.

04:04– I'll come back tomorrow morning.

04:05– No.

04:06I do think if you cut out the midsection you'd be left with a great Twilight Zoney hour,

04:11but as long as you stick with it then it does get good, even if it never gets great.

04:17If nothing else, it is the answer to the question,

04:20what if Truffaut's Antoine Doinel visited a haunted house?

04:25A question no one has ever asked, but who wouldn't want to know the answer?

04:29– I've heard that you Britons act more like ghosts than humans sometimes.

04:36Thanks for watching. We appreciate every single like.

04:40Have you seen this film and if so, what did you think?

04:43What other films mix up genres to some effect, good or bad? Let us know in the comments below.

The Sweet Sound of Death | movie | 1965 | Official Featurette

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