Hell
Surreal descents, a century apart
L’Inferno (1911) d: Giuseppe de Liguoro, Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan
Mad God (2021) d: Phil Tippett
We’ve got two visionary films that pushed the boundaries of visual cinematic magic, released 110 years apart.
L’Inferno was the very first full-length Italian film (though only about a third of it survives). In many ways, it was the first true international “blockbuster”. At the time, the special effects were groundbreaking, and the filmmakers got away with genuinely lurid visuals because of the literary and religious nature of the adaptation (whoa, hello full frontal nudity in 1911!). Here’s the thing though - while it must have been truly shocking for its audience at the time, it’s still an effectively creepy watch to this day, with some indelibly hypnotic imagery that still retains its impact.
Now fast (way, way) forward to Phil Tippett’s goddamn masterpiece, Mad God. For a while, I considered writing a blog post telling you that I couldn’t think of a pair for this, but you should watch it anyway because it is SINGULAR.
OK, first of all, even if you’ve never heard of Phil Tippett, you definitely know his work. He’s a visual effects supervisor and producer, who is responsible for AT-ATs and Tauntauns, Robocop, and the Starship Troopers bugs. He was the “dinosaur supervisor” for Jurassic Park for christ's sake. And Mad God is his baby. Well, to be fair, it’s his adult child, because it took him THIRTY YEARS to make. It also broke him for a bit, he had a breakdown about a year before it was completed (he’s fine now, guys). OK, ok, but the movie itself. It’s mostly wordless, mostly plotless, mostly stop-motion-animated. Excited? No? You should be. There’s a reason multiple critics are out here calling this a magnum opus. It is visually stunning, disturbing and grotesque in the most mesmerizing ways. It’s bursting to the seams with disgusting creativity, and while you can see some of the influences (Dante, Hieronymus Bosch, Harryhausen…), it transcends them to create its own inimitable and dystopian image. This movie is stunning and weird. Watch it.