5 Dolls For an August Moon

5 Dolls For an August Moon
by Mario Bava

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Movie Reviews of 5 Dolls For an August Moon

Movie Review: the indiscreet charmlessness of the bourgeoisie.
Summary: 5 Stars

There is something of 'the Tempest' about 'Five dolls', with its enchanted island (seemingly pivoted around the title moon), a presiding power manipulating everyone's movements and an Ariel-like figure flitting freely and decisively on the margins. but it is Bunuel who is the true guiding spirit - like the party-goers in 'The Exterminating Angel', Bava's bourgeoisie can't leave their opulent surroundings, and their elegant facade is soon stripped away to reveal sexual neurosis, financial greed and violence (lingering traces of fascism in the bright new democratic, industrial Italy, and all prominent in the brutal George); while, like 'Belle de Jour', the mystery narrative is subverted by a complex pattern mixing dream, subjective point-of-view and reality - one amazing sequence sees the survivors magically disappearing when potential rescuers arrive on the island.

As ever, the house is central to Bava's vision, in this case a gorgeously gleaming, futuristic, spacious white interior, reworked into kaleidoscopic shapes by Bava's prowling camera, his quickswitch, wide-angle tilts and his use of deep deep-focus. the Hammond-dominated soundtrack is one of those infectious masterpieces seemingly de rigeur in the Euro-B-movies of the time, and so badly lacking in these gloopy, over-orchestrated times. the missing formula is more than a McGuffin: a powerful symbol for the absence (emotional, moral etc.) debilitating these awful characters. Surveillance is another prominent Bava theme, the all-seeing, unseen eye watching our every move in modern society - in this case the act of spying/looking/viewing and the act of killing are explicitly linked in a moment of Hitchcockian frisson.