The Storm, the Owl, the Secret: SYMPTOMS (1974)

Dew.  Sunlight. Willows.  A sexual altercation.  A body by the river.  They return to Helen (Angela Pleasance) in her dreams, and she writes in her diary of a fear that they may become reality.  This is a context into which she invites her friend Anne (Lorna Heilbron) for a holiday stay at her English country manor.  We know next to nothing about these women, but Helen’s past traumas suggest that she would prefer to keep it that way.  Welcome to Symptoms, a nearly lost horror gem from the 70’s and purportedly the only really good film by Spanish genre barfly José Ramón Larraz.

Helen has many issues with the world around her, and one could argue that Anne’s presence is more of an enabling one than a cure.  Helen’s pastimes appear congenial enough (collecting herbs from the forest and burning them as incense), at least when she’s not making paper doll chains and burning them as therapy.  Her modest, soppy nature is a stark contrast from Anne’s fashionable haircut and prim urban manner.  There is talk of Cora, an old friend whose pictures adorn tabletops but apparently hasn’t been seen in a while.  There is Brady (Peter Vaughan), the odd-job man, at whom Helen never looks or speaks.  “He disgusts me,” she spits, putting distance in between her and him with great speed.  Reflections appear but their owners do not.  At dinner on the first night, she pauses and asks, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”  There is no sound.

“The owl.”

Soon she admits that she “hears things no one else hears.”  Ticking clocks grow and overwhelm her, and Brady’s wood chopping is so resounding it edits scenes with its rhythm.  Lingering shots of the river suggest that the forest may hear her, too.  The attic may have something to do with it, as laughter emerges but the source is unknown.  Perhaps whoever is laughing is the one stringing up ducks in the larder and leaving toast residue on the butter knives.  The problem may also lie in her simmering attraction to Anne, repressed enough that when something does happen it crashes from the screen.  It isn’t long before Anne realizes that not all is right, but is unable to act when Helen presents only enigmatic warnings and thousand-mile stares.  She meets Brady one day and in conversation he says, “You’re prettier than the last one.”

“Who?”

“Cora.”

I shouldn’t reveal too much more without wrecking the experience, and it is quite an experience, dripping in atmosphere and a depth more inferred than revealed.  The acting from all is excellent and expertly placed and the camerawork is stunning, delighting in the cold, rainy corners of the house and making the forest a magical and sinister place.  If pressed to describe the mood in a word, I unfortunately would be forced into using “Bergman-esque.”  That is to say, it feels like Bergman in its studied and thoughtful compositions and in the Persona-like premise, but it thankfully doesn’t share Bergman’s tendencies towards overstuffed dialogue, stiff pacing, and moral superiority.  It wouldn’t be too bold an assumption to put forth that Larraz was inspired by Persona, but focusing too much on the Bergman association would diminish this film’s unique power and is generally bad for the skin.  As it stands Symptoms is not only less annoying than Bergman but is also a deeply intriguing, beautifully shot gem in the annals of artistic horror cinema.  Not bad for the director of Los Ritos Sexuales del Diablo, eh?

As to the above statement that this film is “nearly lost”:  Symptoms played at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, played on British TV in the early 80’s, received an obscure VHS release in Belgium, and the negatives and all known prints just up and decided to vanish.  The only way to see the film is through bootlegging (my copy was duped from one of those TV showings), and unfortunately no official DVD is in sight.  If it makes you feel any better, I actually think the fullscreen cropping, gauzy focus and desaturated colors fit with this movie’s feel (cold, dark, distant and yet confined).  In the meantime we can all just hope for a fresh print to surface so the general public can once again see this quietly creepy masterpiece on its own terms.

Or you could just go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxSOTkVZBTw

~PNK

Symptoms was also reviewed at one of my all-time favorite websites, Bleeding Skull: http://bleedingskull.com/symptoms-1974