Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Andrea M. Catinella
Starring: Amanda Jiang, Charlie Goddard, Deano Bugatti Mitchison, Kay Boggett, Madalina Bellariu Ion, Charlotte Jackson Coleman
Is there a title in the entire arts canon more evocative of gothic grandeur than The Phantom of the Opera? The confluence of its nouns induce alluring visions of a grand supernatural within the most opulent of loci. The Ghost of the Theatre doesn't have quite the same ring, and, for added class, read it in the original French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, ooh la la! Written in 1910, Gaston Leroux's fancy horror novel was inspired by the writer's experience as a theatre critic and various Boulevard du Temple backstage tales, which attests to the story's objective reverence for what the theatre means to audiences, along with the ready acceptance of the premise. A cinema haunting would not work in the same way, although the novel did lead to the iconic Universal feature and inspired Phantom of the Paradise (aka possibly the best film ever made, and a personal obsession: a one sheet hangs framed in the en suite). Even people who wouldn't ordinarily watch horror keep the musical adaptation going, and, until The Lion King, it was the world's most successful entertainment event with Wikipedia informing that it has been seen by "over 140 million people in 183 cities across 41 countries"-!
It has an audience, and I think that the blending of horror circumstances and romantic tropes is a potential woefully overlooked by the Hollywood fat cats. Where is the next Twilight? With their fixation on books involving ogres fucking maidens, etc, both millennials and Gen Z seem to eat this sort of fare up (literally in the case of Bones and All). It is a gap that hasn't gone unnoticed by Andrea M. Catinella (director) and Enrico Tessarin's (writer) City of Masks, which gender flips the original dynamic and relocates to that London in a modern retelling...
"It's 2025, there are no bloody ghosts" a harangued producer maintains to his typically superstitious cast who are about to stage a revival of in-universe famous show "City of Masks." The way the line is worded implies that up until the modern era there actually were such things as ghosts, and before you know it there is another proto-classic line when an actor explains the curse of the theatre wherein "someone dies every time a show happens." Every time?! The producer, Victor (Deano Bugatti Mitchison - affecting a Welsh accent which, brilliantly, crosses over the bridge into estuary vowels several times), goes on to rationalise that there are no ghosts because "the theatre has CCTV cameras"- ? (Chekov's closed circuit...) As the central crux of the narrative was expositioned in these charmingly jejune early moments, I began to warm to this sweet natured, ramshackle film.
What can I say, I'm a true romantic. As is fresh (and handsome) faced actor Christian (Charlie Goddard), who is working towards his West End debut, and, with refreshing expediency duly gets the hots for the theatre "phantom" Eve (Amanda Jiang, another looker. You have to laugh when she takes off her visard and there's just a bright red second degree burn which somehow serves to make her look even more gorgeous in the way vitiligo does with pretty people), who has hitherto been coaching him via a disembodied voice and making the lights go out all scary like. Turns out that liminal Eve was the star and author of the previous incarnation of "City of Masks" and was killed to death by Victor in an ill-fated fiery bid for solo glory. Together Christian and Eve vie for justice...
Yes, it's a load of nonsense. But it's nonsense on a grand stage (the New Wimbledon Theatre, to be exact: a magnificent space). And while the dramatics may lean towards the amateur, it's all filmed so attractively, with sweeping gothic shots and pleasingly melodramatic staging. There is a scene where Victor is putting one on a female actor after hours and is startled by Christian who is lurking around the theatre at night trying to get to the bottom of the mystery. Victor bursts out of his office with an actual gun shouting about "motherfuckers." I adore the idea of a vainglorious theatre producer fully strapped, as I do the concept that instead of bumping off Eve with, I dunno, a bullet from his actual gun, he burns her alive in a dressing room which is fortunately insulated to such a flame proof standard it prevents the whole century plus old theatre from similarly going up in flames. Motherfucker!
You can't fault City of Masks for ambition, either. Its songs and the performances are strong and authentic to the sort of West End show represented (this is a film so deeply entrenched in theatre world that it believes a producer having an affair with a "starlet" would be the stuff of national news). City of Masks is made without an ounce of cynicism, and is instead, fittingly for a film predicated upon love which defies the laws of physics and rationality, a movie of much heart. One imagines that just like Eve, a spectral Gaston Leroux is watching in the wings, old dramaturg hat on, deciding with a proud nod that City of Masks deserves an enthusiastic four out of five.
City of Masks is in UK cinemas from October 30th.
