Suspiria.

Review #2461: Suspiria.

Cast: 

Jessica Harper (Suzy Bannion), Stefania Casini (Sara Simms; Silvia Faver as the English voice), Flavio Bucci (Daniel; Gregory Snegoff as the English voice), Miguel Bosé (Mark; Gregory Snegoff as the English voice), Barbara Magnolfi (Olga Ivanova; Carolyn De Fonseca as the English voice), Susanna Javicoli (Sonia; Susan Spafford as the English voice), Eva Axén (Patricia "Pat" Hingle), Alida Valli (Miss Tanner), and Joan Bennett (Madame Blanc) Directed by Dario Argento.

Review: 

“It’s true, almost everyone is female in Suspiria, all the heroes and villains are women, and the few men are either blind, mute or useless. But I don’t know if it is feminist, people tell me it is… The truth is I like working with women, I have always been fascinated by them. When I was very young I went to a school close to my mother’s studio; she was a photographer, famous for her portraits of actresses in the 1940s and 50s. After school, I would run there and sit in the front room where the actresses would do their make-up and get changed into glamorous dresses, and I would see these marvellous women transform. I would watch how my mother lit their faces and bodies, and when I was shooting Suspiria I remembered this.”

Well, it did seem time to cover a Dario Argento movie, so why not just go with the obvious? The son of a film producer and photographer, Argento was a film critic and a columnist before he became a screenwriter, and one of those scripts that he did work for was Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He became a director with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Influenced by American movies of the 1950s and 1960s along with the works of producer Val Lewton, the movie apparently played for years in Milan, with the movie often being associated as among the big ones of the "giallo" genre (which basically combines some form of the slasher, thriller or psychology). Suspiria was the first of what ended up being three movies that took inspiration from the collection of essays Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas de Quincey (as first published in 1845). He was inspired by a trip he had done through various European cities and a particular spot where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet ("Magic Triangle") while being quite serious about the occult and witchcraft. Argento wrote the movie with his partner Daria Nicolodi that also took inspiration from fairy tales such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The imbibition process was utilized to make for more vivid color rendition that previously had been done for films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939); it was among that last movies to be processed in Technicolor. The movie ran 99 minutes in its native Italy but for the original American distributed release, 20th Century Fox cut some minutes out and even used a shell company to show the movie to audiences, which apparently was quite a hit there. The following two films in a so called "Three Mothers" trilogy were Inferno (1980) and Mother of Tears (2007). After years of attempts to do a remake of the film from American hands (most notably David Gordon Green), a "homage" was released in 2018 that was directed by Luca Guadagnino; Argento was quoted as personally being underwhelmed by what he saw in the film, save for the design. Argento directed a film as recently as 2022 with Dark Glasses. 

It may interest you to know that most of the dialogue in the movie is dubbed over by actors in post-production (save for, well...) because that is how it was for a good deal of Italian movies for the time. It does tend to fit the movie in a strange and unnerving way to look upon the flourishes of color and hear voices that aren't exactly the same as the people saying them. Argento aimed (in his eyes) to make color that would remind you of Snow White (along with early Westerns) what you get is a movie that seemingly comes right out of his mind like a dream - or a nightmare. The study by Argento and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli clearly was worth it in the soul. It goes hand in hand with the progressive rock score by Goblin, who did it collaboration with Argento before the movie was actually shot. The darkness within ourselves can be a powerful force, even for a movie that dances around its narrative like it was a ritual, not dwelling on its absurdity (apparently, the cast was meant to be inhabited by younger people before bowing to the hesitation of the producers). Apparently, Harper's performance in Phantom of the Paradise (1974) influenced Argento to cast her. Harper enjoyed the filming experience (four months in Rome, by the way), complete with getting mail every now and then about the movie and she even made an appearance in the 2018 Suspiria. She provides the vulnerability and grace required of a person who basically is thrust in a fairy tale nightmare, one that is delightful in her ballet from oblivion. The violence of the film looms over the movie with such stark execution that might as well be laughing at you in its defiance of what you might see coming. The logic of the movie is all about what you want it to be, at least when you don't consider some of the convenient exposition. But it all comes down in a great swoop for its climax that just burns down on you with its bouts of imagery and sound. The great terror isn't so much a coven of witches but the coven of one's doubt in their mind about what really is real beyond form and the blood of ourselves. It isn't so much a murder mystery or even a movie about what lurks beneath the coven but instead a movie all about the fear and strange things that lurk in us. The movie is exquisite to view in practically any scene for what you are seeing in its reds and blues that make for devastating effect with the gore in a way that you don't see nearly that often in movies, horror in particular. It is the kind of jagged movie that will leave an impression on its viewer more than just for its gore but for the things that it will inspire the next time one is left in the dark by themselves.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Happy Halloween. Get ready for Halloween: The Week After: The 7th Time