THE FISH WITH EYES OF GOLD (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*

I've not seen any other cinematic works by either the director or the writer of GOLD-- Pedro L. Ramirez and Juan Gallardo Munoz, respectively-- and they don't seem to have done anything else in the subgenre of "the giallo." But so far this is the best Spanish giallo I've encountered-- which is saying something, given the many restrictions on Spanish filmmakers in the 1970s. This may be a reason why GOLD boasts no excessive sex or gore, though the creators found some equally fun ways to explore their material.

I considered not revealing the killer(s) in my analysis, but there seems no way to explicate the symbolic discourse of the movie without ripping the cover off the mystery-- which isn't perfect but shows better attention to detail than a lot of Italian productions.

Teaser scene on a beach, close to a beach town in Spain where all the action takes place: a bikini-clad woman on a beach-towel spies a scuba-diver emerge from the surf. She greets him as if she knows him, but her welcome turns to horror when he stabs her to death. (Right away, the script gets points for introducing a novel way to keep the mystery killer masked.) Close to shore is a witness in a small boat. He rows to shore and the scuba killer runs away. As the witness looks at the dead girl lying on a beach towel, for some reason he focuses on the towel's image of a fish. No golden eyes on this fish, but from the title one can guess this simple decoration going to be tied in somehow to a Big Symbolic Fish.

On a road leading to the beach-town, a good-looking Englishman named Derek (Wal Davis) is hitchhiking. He passes a house and witnesses a woman, Monica, quarreling with a man, Marco. Monica gets in her car, drives past Derek, and then beckons for him to join her. The two chat a bit, and then listen to a radio bulletin about a serial killer having claimed a new victim. Derek notices that Monica wears a pendant ending in a metal fish with golden eyes. She stops at a hotel, takes a room and invites Derek to have sex. 

Sometime later, Derek wakes up in bed with Monica--but a Monica who's been stabbed to death. After struggling with his drunkenness and his nausea at beholding a murdered corpse, Derek sneaks out of the hotel. He seeks sanctuary with another ex-pat Englishman, Zachary Kendall (Ricardo Vazquez) and his wife Virginia (Norma Kastel), both of whom seem to be professional artists who work with both painting and sculpture. It's never stated outright, but since Derek mentions being a minor artist later, presumably they met through art-circles. Zachary, incidentally, is the same fellow who witnessed the bikini-girl's murder, and he accompanies Derek to the local police to tell his story. The Inspector is duly suspicious but only requires Derek not to leave town.

At Zachary's house Derek also meets a young woman with the not-coincidental name of Marina (Ada Tauler) and learns that she knew the late Monica. Since the Englishman is afraid of getting framed for the murders of Monica and other victims, he launches his own amateur investigation. He seeks out Marina at a local aquarium-- which, despite the beach setting, is the only time the audience sees any real fish. Marina informs Derek that Monica's ex-boyfriend was a money-grubbing gigolo who slept with many women for cash. But before Derek learns anything more, Marina's protective father Pablo shows up and tells Derek to leave. It's uncertain as to whether he's more suspicious of Derek being a serial killer or simply a "foreigner."

Derek somehow finds out where Marco lives and searches his room for clues. Marco shows up and they fight, though strangely Marco doesn't call the cops on the intruder. Derek doesn't find any clues, but he does find out that Marco's sleeping with Zachary's wife Virginia.

Virginia won't explain her affair to Derek, but in her studio Derek sees a metal sculpture that looks just like Monica's fish-pendant. She tells him she got the design from a local goldsmith, and the goldsmith says that he hasn't yet distributed any of his pendants-- except one, which he gave to a young man named Marco. He gives Derek the artist's sketch he used for the pendant's design but doesn't remember who did the sketch. 

Derek goes for a drive in Zachary's car to acquaint his buddy with developments. However, the brakes fail and the car crashes. Derek is thrown clear and then manages to pull Zachary from the burning vehicle. Zachary's hands are both burned, the same hands which, moments ago, Virginia complained that he only used for his precious artworks.

Despite this bad automotive experience, Derek then goes on a drive with Marina. He believes Marco guilty but can't explain why a gigolo would cut off his own source of income. They both express their dislike of fish and implicitly make out a little. At the hospital Zachary stops mourning his precious hands long enough to canoodle a little with a young nurse he knew from a previous encounter. Virginia covertly witnesses their interaction.

Derek seeks out Marco again, but a mystery killer gets there first and knifes him dead. The killer, his face guarded by dark glasses (even though it's night), clouts Derek from behind and flees in a car. Derek tries to follow by stealing a citizen's car, but the cops pull him over and the killer gets away.

Surprisingly, the Inspector confides in Derek that he had a psychoanalyst examine the sketch, and the verdict was that it was made by someone with a severe psychotic disorder. And so we finally get a payoff on an earlier scene in which Zachary witnessed his mad father kill his mother (in the presence of a goldfish tank, no less). Zachary wasn't the original serial killer-- that was Marco, though his motive is never clear-- but Zachary's own buried psychosis was triggered by seeing the slain woman, and he killed Monica and all victims after that. Fittingly, the final face-down takes place at the aquarium.

Dario Argento's shadow looms large over GOLD. The more important trope borrowed from Argento is the idea that psychotic evil can spread from villain to victim like a disease. But I also like that, while a lot of giallos use animals in their titles just because Argento did it, Ramirez and Munoz seem to be using their fish-motif as a symbol of the unconscious life, the place that gives birth to sex and transgressive obsessions-- even though, as I said, no fish are directly involved in the narrative.