Peter Strickland crafts another trippy treat for the senses
When Peter Strickland is involved you know your senses are in for a treat. From the auditory components of Berberian Sound Studio back in 2012, to the sumptuous, sensual delights of The Duke of Burgandy in 2014, his films have been textured delights, aesthetics enveloping offbeat tales, where characters, situations, and humor are warped into something slightly abstract. His latest offers more of the same, aligning perfectly with his homage to giallo.
Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Secrets & Lies, Broadchurch) is a 40-something divorcee. In between juggling her job at a local bank, raising her teenage son (Jaygann Ayeh), and butting heads with his older, intrusive girlfriend (Gwendoline Christie, sparring wonderfully with Jean-Baptiste), she’s also struggling to make new connections in her personal life. When she finally lands a date through the personal ads, she looks to spruce up her appearance, getting a haircut and being drawn into the sales at Dentley & Soper, a local department store, one ran by a strange horde of women channeling Victorian ideals and offering shopping advice with flowery language lilted with East European accents. After some cajoling from the assistant, she decides to go outside her usual comfort zone and buy a luxuriant red dress. After the date comes and goes, the legacy of this purchase begins to have consequences in her life, and she begins to suspect its origins may not be entirely natural.
In Fabric throws together two worlds with fascinating results. At its core it’s a British drama, inhabited by Sheila and later by two other unsuspecting wearers of the dress, a washing machine repairman (Leo Bill) and his fiancee (Hayley Squires). Their tales feel genuine, imbued with authenticity and hints of sadness. These are dowdy, downtrodden Brits mired in dissatisfaction with their lives, Strickland seemingly lifting from a Mike Leigh film. Wrapping around them are this demonic red dress and the world it comes from, one paying tribute to Italian horror. To be more precise, giallo, the luscious horror sub-genre made popular by directors such as Dario Argento and Mario Bava, where mildly unfocused narratives were delivered with indulgent, stylized imagery and mood. It’s a a horror accessory that fits perfectly with Strickland’s ideals. The aesthetic of In Fabric leans back into the ‘70s and ‘80s, with British kitsch informing much of the production design, making for a visual curio, with flourishes of red coming from the demonic dress itself — a wisp of “artery red” fabric, floating, wrapping, and smothering its way through the film. It further contributes to a whimsical tone — not horror per se, but rather a heightened sense of unease, one exacerbated by some of the most impressive sound design I’ve heard in along time. Background chattering in the department store almost prompted me to shush someone in the corner of my theater. A harpsichord-heavy score from Tim Gane aligns perfectly with the off-kilter tone and aesthetic.
The film verges on an anthology structure, which strangely knocks the momentum somewhat when the focus unexpectedly shifts halfway though. This is more a compliment on how invested you are in Sheila than any slight on the next unfortunate souls to don the dress. In Fabric regains its rhythm eventually, but one does wonder if a focus on one, or expansion to multiple ‘entries’, might have made for a more fluid composition. Between the two tales there are some delightful connective threads — the devilish department store obviously, but also Steve Oram and Julian Barrett, micromanaging branch managers at Sheila’s bank who proffer up advice on appropriate handshakes and inappropriate bathroom breaks. They also have a hilarious penchant for washing machine erotica. The pair serve as a microcosm for the type of humor weaved throughout the film, a distinct tone you’ve come to expect from Strickland and producer Ben Wheatley.
The main cast are outstanding, with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Leo Bill, and Hayley Squires providing authentic grounded components in the midst of such hyperstimulation. The real outlier is Fatma Mohamed, a Romanian actress regularly deployed by Strickland, never to greater effect than here as one of the Dentley & Soper proprietors/salespeople. She’s utterly captivating with her riddles, verbose dialogue (“Did the transaction validate your paradigm of consumerism?”), and curious body language. This woman and the rest of her brethren are the oddest and most enthralling component of In Fabric, with audiences titillated by fleeting glimpses of their quirks and lascivious activities, including the erotic pleasuring of a shop mannequin and accompanying slo-mo cumshot from a voyeuristic old man. There are not many directors who can turn something like that into a work of art.
The ritualistic aspects of the film are not confined to the after hours activities of the department store, with not just consumerism seemingly in Strickland’s crosshairs, but rather superficiality. Crowds of shoppers are waiting at the doors, driven to buy with hints of mindless fanaticism that eventually gives way to something more destructive. Their pilgrimages are fueled by TV adverts that play out with hypnotic effect, reminiscent of similar fare for Silver Shamrock in Halloween III Season of the Witch. People are drawn in by their urges to buy and change their appearance. Even the changing rooms are labeled “transformation spheres.” It’s no coincidence that the dissatisfied souls wearing this devilish garment first see a manifestation of the curse with blemishes of the body. It’s a superficial quick fix, drawing out what really bubbles beneath the skin.
The film does leave you with questions, though. How did the curse arise, are these women witches, are all the shoppers subjected to the similar fallout from their purchases, what’s Strickland’s deal with mannequins? The beauty of his work is not only how provocative it can be, but how you feel so satiated by the texture and richness of what’s on screen. In Fabric, his self-styled giallo, delivers that in spades. A trippy, luscious, and borderline fetishistic treat for the senses.
In Fabric screened at Fantastic Fest 2018 and was recently acquired by A24.