MUBI

Sometimes movies are perfect and this is definitely one of those cases. Argento’s directing is flawless and he knows all the necessary factors to instill fear. The lighting is bizarre and matches the offbeat nature of the soundtrack. While I’m not a huge fan of dubbing, this is probably the best job of it that i’ve seen. Jessica Harper did a great job and had me rooting for her the entire time, her closing shot is amazing. The story is so suspenseful and well orchestrated, witches have never been dealt with this good of taste.

I’ve always wondered what would happen if Vincente Minnelli had made a horror film. Or rather, if an MGM dream ballet sequence had, instead of being confined to the span of fifteen minutes, now the entire movie length to do its magic. Or witchcraft, you could say….

This, essentially, is Suspiria, a horror/slasher/supernatural thriller with a highly operatic and musical style, complete with leitmotifs and theme reprisals on the soundtrack.
Heck, some of the character movements are entirely stylized to the point of theater. This is the point of course, or at least, that is what I believe. As of this moment, this is the only Dario Argento film I have seen.

I have heard that he had/has a penchant for staging some spectacular death scenes. Forget Final Destination, Argento seems to revel in the fact that the mechanisms for killing and toture are totally irrelevant to the room, setting or tone.

Example: so you’re running away from the killer. You sneak away in the attic, feeling safe, despite the fact that the stalker seems to be unlocking the door with relative ease. What else to do? Why, crawl out through the window. Congratulations! You’ve escaped the killer….except you’ve just fallen into a room-full of razor-wire. Oops.
Well, now the killer found you and he’s slitting your throat with a razor blade. Sucks to be you.

There’s actually only a couple death scenes, but they play out like giant set pieces with balletic camera movements, highly stylized sets and such.

But enough about that, what about the movie?

In a nutshell, Jessica Harper plays an American dance student, who has come to a German dance boarding school. Despite the techincolor decor and rather endless halls, it’s a fairly nice place…oh yeah, there’s been a couple murders as well. Soon weird things are afoot, as she has to uncover not only the secret of the school, but survive before demonic forces start coming after her.

It’s actually a little difficult to follow, if only because the film’s visual style is so overwhelming that you kind of forget to listen to the dialogue.

The film’s look is literally a techincolor fever nightmare. It’s delirious and makes Juliet of the Spirits look like sepia tone. This film is drunk with color, and how wonderful it is. Neon and purple, green and red and blue and flashes of yellow color all manners of rooms. It doesn’t matter if it makes any sort of spatial sense, it just looks cool and fits certain sequences thematically.

Case in point, a girl is getting stabbed to death, but instead of getting the usual spurt of blood, a long shaft of deep red light appears over her body. Soon it begins to engulf her.

Sure, it’s theatrical, but does it matter when you find out that this is all a plan concocted by an evil witch and her coven? Really, even if the tone didn’t fit the subject matter, it wouldn’t matter, as the saturated colors, strange sets and crazy camera movements simply make the film feel like Kafka on Acid.

Perhaps the only problem is the stilted dialogue that sometimes comes across as…parodic? Who knows. It doesn’t matter that much, as it sorta contributes to the weirdness, but only a little.

When watching this, I couldn’t help but think of THE SHINING. Really, think about it. Both have creepy, mansion like buildings, where there is no escape. It seems like there’s a supernatural force at work.

But the subject matters are not what’s making me connect the films, it’s the style.

Kubrick seems to have embraced the same theatrical, dare I say it? Grand Guignol tone. The Overlook hotel has a threatening menace by simply being there; its decor, color (predominantly red) all contribute to the nightmare of….something.

Same thing with Suspirira. Most of the time, you’re looking at NOTHING, but it’s unspeakably creepy simply because of the colors, sounds, and delirious soundtrack. Omininous chanting and strange synths; it’s a veritable nightmare, despite almost spiraling off into farce.

We can forgive Argento for that. It’s clear he’s having too much fun with the material. It’s so lively and full of killer inventiveness. Really! This film has the most flamboyant double deaths I’ve ever seen!

Aspiring killers, take note. Use everything AND the kitchen sink. And while you’re at it, pick an exotic location, like a dance academy!

This is so pulpy it’s not even funny, but with a title like SUSPIRIA, what can you expect?

One of the characters summed up Suspiria quite concisely at the start of the film. She said, “It’s all so absurd, so fantastic.” I can’t think of a better way to begin a description. Sure the gore factor is fake and overkill, the horrible dub job is laughable, and the story is just a jumbled mess that gets loosely tied together by a witch subplot with fifteen minutes left, but there is a lot to like here. The absurdity works for it by creating a dreamlike state and journey through an otherworldly German dance school. Its fantastical elements lend a way to become absorbed in its lush settings, helping allow us to forget the incoherence of it all. The cinematography is quite stunning at times and the use of color and light just magnificent. Add in a killer synth soudtrack from the Goblins and you have some very unsettling stuff. Can one appreciate a film for its artistic merits despite its crude script and performances? I say yes.

With a plot concerning an American girl coming to Germany in order to be educated at a prestigious dance academy only to find money-hungry women and grisly murders, you can expect over-the-top craziness. When the darkness between two Greek inspired monuments can cause a dog to bite a man’s jugular and kill him and a girl can jump out a window to safety only to fall into a pit of barbed wire, there are no rules. Writer/director Dario Argento seems to have used his fantasy theme as an excuse to show he can creatively kill off characters without being held realistically responsible. The occult plays a huge role in the film and all the weird deaths are easily linked together as events caused by an evil force emanating from the coven of witches that occupy and run the school. Dark magic has no bounds and it will inhabit whatever necessary to inflict the desired action. Whether it the wind, a yellowed snakelike eyed creature outside a window, an otherwise benign seeing eye dog, or one’s own body, anything can become a vehicle for homicide.

The end of the film really delves into the nightmare/dream state set forth from the start, making it remind me a lot of “Twin Peaks” and Lynch’s Black Lodge with the Red Room. Every architectural setting utilized in the film seems to be a labyrinthine puzzle box to explore. Our lead Suzy eventually finds herself searching through the passageways and hallways in order to finally get some answers to what is happening around her. Turn the purple iris, open the door that holds the living dead, count the footsteps of the instructors to gauge where it is they are going—Suzy is strong willed and sets her mind without faltering. Unafraid to talk back to the headmistress about wanting to live offsite, praised for her strength by the militant Miss Tanner, she will not be stopped or scared away from finding out the truth.

Played with just the right mix of naïveté and power, Jessica Harper does an admirable job holding the film up. Her Suzy is caught in the middle of a struggle against dissenters at the school. No one can just leave because once they glimpse the truth, they know too much. She is drugged nightly, manipulated into staying at the school, and constantly experiencing death and disappearance of those around her. Effective as the innocent waif, she also makes her horror movie cliché actions appear thought out and possible due to her curiosity rather than stupid and plot progressing like most horror. She opens a door because she wants to, not because that’s what we expect in the canon. The rest of the acting is effective, but unfortunately the performances that stick out are because of the horrible over-dubbing. Udo Kier, Mr. Thick German Accent himself, is dubbed over with flawless speech devoid of any accent. You could tell me that it’s actually him dubbing his own lines, but I will not believe it. And then there is Rudolf Schündler as his professor colleague; his words are so off track from his mouth movements that I wouldn’t be surprised if he was speaking a different language in the visuals. I guess it’s all part of the charm and cult quality people have come to love.

I will, however, completely praise the artistic merits on display. The set designs are sumptuous and extremely ornate. Each room is painted with a unique pattern and bright, bold colors. Whether an organic, flowery motif or geometrically sharp angles, the camera always tends to settle for at least a brief moment to show off the work. The apartment building that becomes the setting for our first murder is gaudy to perfection with its symmetrical design and colored overhead window. Even the shards of glass sticking out from a woman’s body have a sense of beauty to them. But, it is the use of light that truly warrants accolades. The use of red is very prevalent, the connotation to blood an obvious connection, and the light and shadow working along with it helps set the mood with the loud, jarring soundtrack. Composition is carefully planned and through close-ups we are treated to some stunning visuals. The long depth of focus shots are my favorite, between the shot of a maid and the headmistress’s nephew shrouded in bright light reflected from a knife to the view of the entranceway as we await Miss Tanner to walk through storming into the rehearsal room, nothing compares to the absolute first sequence. Commencing with Suzy in white against the crowds’ sea of red, her approach to the exit is filled with the overpowering score as the camera cuts sharply to her face before the foreboding cut back to the door as its opened, letting the storm brewing outside to be shown. All the safety and security of her once simple life is about to be subjected to the tempest that will threaten to consume her.

Sure, as with most of Argento’s affairs, rain will fall and glass will be shattered, but where does one exactly begin with Suspriria? It’s by far Argento’s best film, and avoids one of giallo’s greatest cliches, that of excessive amounts of nudity. Funny, since the majority of the cast is female and it takes place in a dance/boarding school. Argento originally wanted this to take place in a children’s school, but the studio wanted him to change the location, and he did, script intact. This explains some of the goofy dialogue and gestures the girls make. And then there were the sets, illustrated by luscious Technicolor. Everything from the colored lighting to the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari-esque windows screamed Argento in my face. A truly beautiful film. The score that Argento helped create with Goblin is astounding.

Writer Scott Michael Bosco put it best when he wrote this, "These images are painted with blood, yet unsettlingly portrayed with the lyricism of a ballet. . . It is a world born within closed eye lids and rapid eye movements. It’s all in the world of the sub-conscience where fears are the political structure of the land called nightmares. Our form of transportation to this place is celluloid in its various states, our guide is Dario Argento.