Asia Argento: The Scarlet Diva Vince D’Amato talks Argento June 3rd 2006 04:20am | Posted by: Editor-in-Chief Feature by Vince D’Amato | HNR Special Contributor Asia Argento is a talented International actress. She’s directed her own feature films. She was named sexiest woman in the world by Maxim magazine in 2003. And now, finally, her second full-length feature film as both director and actor is available in North America, two years after its initial completion. Asia began acting as a child, her first role was in her producer father’s (Dario Argento) Demons 2 – the sequel to Dario’s smash Italian horror hit that he wrote and produced, but did not direct. Asia returned with a much bigger supporting role in Demons 3 – known on this side of the ocean as “The Church”. As she approached adulthood, her father cast her once again, but this time in an edgy co-starring role in what would be (to date) Dario’s only American feature-length directorial effort. 1994’s Trauma. Finally released in its original uncut version and utilizing Dario’s cinemascope aspect ratio, Anchor Bay Entertainment made this underrated Argento thriller available to the DVD masses in its intended form just last summer. While Asia was reportedly only seventeen at the time this film was shot, her director father nevertheless featured her in her first (albeit brief) nude scene. But that was hardly as harrowing as physically portraying a suicidal anorexic teenager whose parents have been murdered right in front of her. Asia speaks a little bit about this performance in particular on the DVD release her own first directorial effort The Scarlet Diva – shot in 2000 and released in 2003 by the DVD distribution company Shriek Show in America. Along with the 2005 DVD release of Dario’s Trauma, 2005 also saw both the theatrical and the home-video release of George A. Romero’s latest zombie masterpiece, Land of the Dead. In this film, Asia Argento plays the zombie-ass-kicking ex-prostitute named Slack. While she’d previously played a dynamic (if fairly cheesy) Bond-esque eye-candy secondary role in the 2003 action flick XXX, Romero finally gave Asia the chance to really show off her action chops in a hard-assed co-starring role in his ballistic action flick, which she pulled off with plenty of cool and charm, often communicating volumes of character exposition with just a flick of her eyelashes. (This is a trait Romero often employs of his actors). And if you didn’t know Asia was becoming an internationally recognized actress over the last couple of years, certainly some of the producers in Hollywood noticed - she was hired specifically as an acting coach on the big-budget Bruce Willis vehicle Hostage (also 2005). Asia’s own freshman directorial effort was a bold semi-autobiographical art-house drama with plenty of sex, nudity, drug use and general discomfort as we see Asia starring as a young Italian starlet who is trying to get her first script produced overseas. Combining her experiences with her father, as well as other cult directors like Abel Ferrara and Michael Radford, Asia painted a cinematic picture of sleaze, self-destruction, redemption and the general feeling of an out-of-control juggernaut while still infusing a substantial amount of allure, charisma and amiability. This type of self-destructive and somewhat loathing reflection as entertainment could have easily fallen to pieces (or worse, become utterly boring) in the hands of so many others – but what is Asia’s raw and novice talent is also her honesty, and that in itself is appealing enough to carry her first full-length directorial endeavor. Since the video release of Scarlet Diva, Asia’s most notorious directorial turn was most surely Marilyn Manson’s “Saint” video for the Lest We Forget video collection - her video was banned by MTV. The same year that she directed the MM video, she also chose to follow up her feature film directing with 2004’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. Having been released over a year ago in European territories, we North American viewers will finally get to see The Sexiest Woman in the World’s sophomore film thanks to Palm Pictures. The American distributor also plasters this quote on the DVD box: “Asia Argento’s performance is FEARLESS!” Well, from all of us who have seen Scarlet Diva, Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome, B. Monkey or even Marilyn Manson’s MTV-banned video: We already knew that. What the box doesn’t tell us is that this is a far cry from any of Argento’s previous roles, whether they’ve been kleptomaniac anorexics, self-destructive actresses or zombie-slaying ex-prostitutes. Source: HNR In: Features |Visit the HNR Forums

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