My story can never be told

So here's a quandary. I loved the double feature of Neil Jordan's Byzantium (2013) and Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio (2012) I saw last night at the Brattle Theatre with rushthatspeaks. It is nearly impossible for me to talk about the elements of either movie that most frustrated or impressed me without delving into the details of plot that both movies take care not to give away immediately. Neither of them is a puzzle, nor does the emotional effect in either case depend on big shocking twists revealed, but I went into both with only the most general idea of their subjects—a pair of vampires in a run-down seaside town, a British sound engineer on the set of a giallo film—and they are each more complexly rewarding than that introductory gloss sounds. Directly after Byzantium finished, the trailer for it played ahead of Berberian Sound Studio and we both nearly screamed, because the film is careful about the pace and juxtaposition of its levels of narrative and the trailer just blurts them out in ways that make the film look significantly less interesting than it was. As for Berberian Sound Studio, it is difficult to talk even about the premise, because it's deceptive. The film is genuine horror, but the source is not what it first looks like. The two of them together made a hell of a double feature for exactly the reasons I can't readily discuss.

Just to heighten the fun, I have a blistering headache from the sinus infection I have been failing to shake for the last week, meaning my ability to review like a coherent person and not like a sleep-deprived salad of abstract nouns is rather severely compromised at the moment. I am therefore putting this down as a placeholder: I will write about both of these movies as soon as my head clears, but I will write about both of these movies in ways that take no account of spoiler warnings, whereas usually I make some effort (unless asked in comments by asakiyume) to leave at least the last scene out of it. There's no way to discuss the substance of the story otherwise; I'll sound like a terrible movie trailer, all half-hints in the wrong places, if I try. I just need to feel that someone isn't trying to grind my nasal bones out through my eye sockets first.

In the meantime, in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day and its Dorset-burring patron saint, the internet appears to be offering me something called Waterfront (1950) starring Robert Newton, Kathleen Harrison, and Richard Burton. Looks kitchen-sink-ish. I may totally watch it.