The two trailers that have been showcased to audiences possess similar visual content but ultimately differing intent; the Official trailer is almost haunting in its presentation of romance and horror whilst the Theatrical trailer gives a broader advertisement of its road trip-esque plot.
Yet at the same time, director Guadagnino is evidently attempting to combine the beautiful with the grotesque, exploring the bloodthirsty otherness of its two leads, played by Timothee Chalamet (Dune, Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird) and Taylor Russell (Escape Room, Before I Fall, Waves), coinciding with the cinematic beauty that Guadagnino’s films have garnered a reputation for possessing. This isn’t the first time that Guadagnino has achieved such a feat, with his 2018 remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria mixing the supernatural gruesomeness of the film’s subject matter with the beauty of its graceful cinematography, production design and ethereal original score.
What we seem to have in the case of Bones and All may be the culmination of Guadingnino’s attempt to blend the freakish, monstrous overtures of Suspiria with the emotional tenderness and visual elegance of his 2017 adaptation, Call Me By Your Name. It’s easy to see that Guadagnino is cooking up a freakish feature; a film that is seemingly subversive in its tone, which is almost contradictory in nature as seen by the drastic dichotomy of its two trailers.
Yet, as audiences have seen with Suspiria, Guadagnino is no stranger to unearthing cinematic beauty from within the depths of depravity.