SUSPIRIA (2018)

Studio:      Amazon Studios
Director:    Luca Guadagnino
Writer:      David Kajganich
Producer:  Gabriele Moratti, William Sherak, Silvia Venturini Fendi, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Luca Guadagnino, David Kajganich, Marco Morabito, Bradley J. Fischer
Stars:     Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Lutz Ebersdorf, Jessica Harper, Chloe Grace Moretz

Review Score:

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Summary:

In 1977 Berlin, a young American dancer uncovers a conspiracy involving witchcraft inside an exclusive dance academy.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

ACT ONE – 1977

Patricia Hingle confides in psychotherapist Dr. Josef Klemperer that she believes the Helena Markos Dance Company where she studies is secretly run by a coven of witches. Raving that ‘Mother Markos’ wants to get inside her, Dr. Klemperer diagnoses Patricia’s wild claims of grooming for an ancient ritual, speaking telepathically, and remote viewing as byproducts of being delusional.

Following the death of her mother on their family farm in Ohio, Susie Bannion arrives at the Tanz building in Berlin to audition for the Helena Markos Dance Company. Greeted by Miss Tanner, Susie dances in front of three of the company’s matrons before her presence attracts artistic director Madame Blanc. Sensing something about her, the women accept Susie into their troupe.

Susie overhears the other students discussing Patricia’s recent disappearance. Miss Tanner claims Patricia left voluntarily.

Fellow student Sara Simmons joins Susie at her nearby hotel and the two become fast friends. They also discuss the social unrest currently consuming the city.

ACT TWO – PALACES OF TEARS

The matrons, who include Miss Millius, Miss Boutaher, Miss Vendegast, Miss Griffith, Miss Kaplitt, Miss Huller, Miss Balfour, Miss Marks, Miss Daniels, Miss Killen, Miss Mandel, and Miss Mauceri, vote on who should lead their coven. Helena Markos edges out Madame Blanc by three votes to remain in power.

Despite what happened with Patricia, Markos expresses a desire to try their ritual again with a new subject. Miss Tanner and Madame Blanc discuss the possibility of using Sara or Susie. Sara helps Susie move into the dorms in the Tanz building.

Madame Blanc introduces Susie to the other dancers during a rehearsal in the Iris Studio. Suspicious that they were involved in Patricia’s disappearance, dancer Olga shouts that the matrons are “witches” and storms out of the studio. Blanc tells everyone that Patricia merely left to join the RAF.

Susie volunteers to play the difficult part of the protagonist in the company’s signature performance “Volk.” Susie’s pressure points in her hands and feet glow after Madame Blanc touches them. While Susie rigorously dances, Olga becomes trapped inside a separate studio. Susie’s extreme motions cause Olga’s body to violently contort until she crumples into a malformed shape. Susie also collapses. Several matrons use silver hooks to move Olga into a secret chamber.

Dr. Klemperer visits the home formerly shared with his wife Anke Meier, who went missing during World War Two. Back in his office, Klemperer reads Patricia’s journal, which details the witch conspiracy and mentions “Three Mothers,” one of whom is ‘Mother Suspiriorum.’ Klemperer reports Patricia’s unexplained disappearance to Detectives Glockner and Albrecht.

Based on her remarkable performance, the matrons discuss Susie’s potential. Susie and Madame Blanc have a private conversation as their bond grows. Susie talks to Sara about Olga’s distrust of the matrons. That night, Susie has a nightmare of her mother punishing her intercut with brief, disturbing visions.

ACT THREE – BORROWING

Sara enlists Susie to help break into the office to look for clues regarding the missing dancers, but they discover Patricia and Olga’s files are missing. Susie follows cackling to another room where she spies several matrons prodding and taunting the two hypnotized detectives, who came to the studio to investigate Patricia’s disappearance.

Madame Blanc has the students rehearse a new routine about rebirth titled “Open Again.” Creature-like hands are shown in an unseen location as everyone dances. Markos again expresses her desire to use Susie to give her life. Madame Blanc explains that she doesn’t want to rush Susie like they did Patricia and expresses doubt that Markos really is one of the Three Mothers.

The matrons plot to make Dr. Klemperer a “witness” for sending the police to investigate them.

Madame Blanc sends Susie another nightmare. Susie’s sudden scream wakes several other dancers, who explain that nightmares are common for everyone in the Markos Company. Sara comforts Susie by sleeping in the same bed with her.

ACT FOUR – TAKING

Dr. Klemperer goes to see Detectives Glockner and Albrecht, who claim they didn’t see anything at the academy worth remembering. Klemperer relays Patricia’s suspicion that Mother Markos was leading a coven. After being dismissed, Klemperer reminds Albrecht they met once before when he helped search for Anke.

During another rehearsal, Susie disagrees with Madame Blanc’s direction to jump in the air by saying she feels as though the piece calls for her to be on the ground. Blanc shares a strange stare with dancer Caroline, whom Blanc previously instructed to demonstrate the jumps for Susie. Following the rehearsal, Caroline suffers a violent seizure.

Dr. Klemperer comes to the Tanz building looking for clues about Patricia and meets Sara. Klemperer takes Sara to lunch where he shows her Patricia’s journal. Sara leaves abruptly, claiming she doesn’t see any evidence of a witch conspiracy at the Markos Company. Klemperer implores Sara to look closer for the hidden rooms Patricia claimed exist.

Susie has a private rehearsal with Madame Blanc. Blanc convinces Susie to incorporate the jumps into her routine.

The matrons discuss the ritual’s risk as well as their worry that their company will be finished if Markos dies. Miss Griffith, who previously showed empathetic connections to certain dancers, suddenly stabs herself in the throat while Susie dances in another room.

Sara explores the building and finds a secret passageway behind a studio mirror. The passageway leads to a room with valuable antiquities and a portrait of Madame Blanc with Helena Markos. Sara also overhears the coven discussing their ritual.

Sara returns to Dr. Klemperer with a silver hook she took from the secret room. Klemperer elaborates on the Three Mothers of darkness, tears, and sighs, who are said to be powerful witches displaced from time. Sara thinks she sees Miss Tanner stalking her when she leaves Klemperer’s office.

In the Tanz building, Susie hears wheezing that reminds her of her mother on her deathbed. Susie sees a memory of her mother asking a priest to forgive her for birthing Susie, whom she identifies as a sin she smeared on the world.

Noting Susie’s complacency, Sara accuses Susie of having made a deal with the matrons. Susie assures Sara nothing is wrong.

ACT FIVE – IN THE MUTTERHAUS (ALL THE FLOORS ARE DARKNESS)

Dr. Klemperer arrives at Tanz with numerous other patrons for the company’s “Volk” performance. With Sara missing, the dancers are instructed to start without her.

Sara explores another hidden chamber where she finds Patricia, Olga, and other women in painful states of deformity. Sara breaks her shinbone when a hole opens in the floor beneath her. The matrons heal Sara’s open wound, entrance her, and direct Sara to join the performance.

As they watch Susie’s mesmeric dancing, Miss Tanner tells Madame Blanc she believes Susie is finally ready. Sara suddenly collapses from her broken leg, immediately ending the performance by alarming everyone.

Susie and Madame Blanc communicate telepathically afterward to discuss Susie having gone off book during the show. Blanc decides not to send Susie another dream.

ACT SIX – SUSPIRIORUM

The matrons take the dancers into the city for dinner. Several matrons and dancers share entranced stares with each other over the table, including Susie and Madame Blanc.

Dr. Klemperer throws the silver hook and other witch conspiracy materials into the water beneath a bridge. When he returns home, he finds his missing wife Anke unexpectedly waiting for him. Anke explains where she has been for 35 years as they walk through the city. When they arrive at the Tanz building, Anke suddenly disappears. Several matrons capture Klemperer. Having retrieved it from the river, the matrons also complain that Klemperer sullied their silver hook.

Susie returns to the Tanz building entranced. A flashing light guides her to a secret sanctum where nude matrons and entranced dancers conduct the witches’ ritual. Stripped naked on a dais, Dr. Klemperer pleads to be spared. Patricia, Olga, and Sara are cut in their bellies for their insides to be used in the ritual.

Her body disgustingly mutated, Helena Markos taunts Madame Blanc by saying she looks afraid. After Susie willingly offers her body as a vessel, Blanc offers to give Susie back her mind if she isn’t ready. Blanc notes that something doesn’t feel right as the ritual proceeds. When Blanc moves to stop the ritual, Markos supernaturally snaps Blanc’s neck into a bloody fountain.

Markos tells Susie she must renounce her birth mother. The monstrous witch glimpsed earlier rises to enter the sanctum. Stunned, Markos asks Susie, “who are you?” Inhabited by the real Mother Suspiriorum, Susie replies, “I am she.”

The monstrous witch kisses Markos, who suddenly dies violently. The witch goes around the room bursting the heads of everyone who voted for Markos to lead the coven instead of Madame Blanc.

Susie tears her chest open. Susie then kills Patricia, Olga, and Sara out of mercy when they ask to finally die.

Miss Vendegast dresses Dr. Klemperer and escorts him outside. Still dazed, Klemperer wanders home.

EPILOGUE – A SLICED-UP PEAR

With their memories of the ritual erased, the remaining students suffer strange nightmares. Their new choreographer later tells them that Madame Blanc left the company.

The matrons clean the bloody sanctum. Madame Blanc is found still alive.

Susie visits bedridden Dr. Klemperer. Susie apologizes for what “her daughters” did to him and explains the true fate of his wife Anke, who was executed in a concentration camp. Susie then erases Klemperer’s memories and vanishes. Susie later makes a mark on an unseen wall.

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Review:

For some, “Suspiria” 1977 remains such a sacrosanct horror hallmark, the mere thought of rebooting, refreshing, or doing anything other than casting Dario Argento’s modern masterpiece in idolatrized gold is tantamount to unspeakable blasphemy. Even though director Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 reimagining becomes its own bloodily beautiful beast, this skin-deep review nevertheless feels the need to address that notion by first executing the elephant in the room.

“Suspiria” 2018 does not exist because of perceptions of deficiency or even antiquation in the original. Rather, Guadagnino envisions David Kajganich’s succulent script with one eye of wondrous admiration for Argento’s accomplishments while the other plots an alternate path with unique style. By not allowing its reverence to forge a shackle, “Suspiria” emerges as the absolute best kind of remake in that it functions as a complementary companion, not a supplanting surrogate.

The story’s major strokes mostly stay the same. Following the death of her mother on their family’s farm in Ohio, bright-eyed Susie Bannion arrives in 1977 Berlin to audition for the famed Helena Markos Dance Company. Susie’s unbridled talent wins her swift admission. More importantly, her passionate presence earns the immediate attention of artistic director Madame Blanc.

The troupe needs a new dancer. Previous performer Patricia hasn’t been seen since she made mad claims that the academy is secretly run by a conspiratorial coven. Psychotherapist Dr. Klemperer diagnoses her as delusional. But after Patricia vanishes under suspicious circumstances, both he and Susie begin treading two trails leading to similarly insidious destinations.

Susie seemingly comes cut from a clichéd cloth of beauteous bumpkin stitched from crisscrossed threads of ambition and naivety. That deceiving impression launches her arc’s trajectory at dizzying angles when she develops into a complex creature. Dakota Johnson brings her mother Melanie Griffith to mind most with this particular performance, presenting the appearance of a vacantly malleable mannequin while quietly packing powder keg potency for unanticipated action. Like “Suspiria” itself, Susie/Johnson projects imagery to concurrently conflict and complement the context of her characterization for dark duality that’s eerily enchanting.

It’s arguable whether or not Susie truly is our lifeline through the movie. Dr. Klemperer offers a more consistent anchor, although stringing him on a separate thread from what’s happening at the dance studio keeps his role’s relevance shadowed for so long, jumps to his side story can be jarring.

Yet with Tilda Swinton making Klemperer almost as fascinating as her primary personality Madame Blanc, the doctor comes across no less captivating as a character. To that effect, the old man makeup used to transform Swinton sublimely stuns with awesome authenticity. If Swinton’s voice were masculine, the illusion of ‘Lutz Ebersdorf’ being a different actor might give even the most astute perceptions pause.

Having Swinton play two people is far from the only creative choice yielding mixed results. Other questionable moves made by Luca Guadagnino often involve curious angles or odd edits.

A thin film of slight sleaze occasionally accompanies camera placement to induce immersion-breaking discomfort that doesn’t appear intentional. Final performance notwithstanding, dance rehearsal segments aren’t specifically sexualized. So it seems exploitive to put the camera down behind Dakota Johnson or Mia Goth when they’re bending over with knees and noses on the floor. It’s like the lens tries sneaking illicit peeks under the guise of happenstance positioning when in actuality, no details about “Suspiria’s” construction are incidental.

Never mind unmotivated whip pans or sudden cuts to unimportant props. Is a close-up of urine splashing the bottom of a plastic collection cup really necessary when Susie already pulled down her underwear and sat on a toilet in the same scene? I can’t tell if Gudagnino’s intentions in certain cases are to slightly unsettle or if he genuinely feels these cutaways are crucial to establishing exposition.

Such conflicts create small shames. For instance, “Suspiria” provokes provocative philosophy when Klemperer muses that a delusion shared by multiple people is no different than a religion. But Susie also compares the elation of primal dancing to an inference of bestiality. Alternations between introspection and outspoken shock may mean to disorient the viewer, but do just as much to unbalance the atmosphere.

Guadagnino takes two and a half hours to explore the same space Argento covered in 60 fewer minutes. The film actually doesn’t feel overlong as a whole, though scenes such as the public “Volk” performance and extended epilogue feel their length during those individual moments. A fresh-eyed editor could probably get one cut closer to a smoother flow by culling indulgent bits, in the process eliminating material momentarily off-putting for the wrong reasons.

Because when “Suspiria” 2018 is off-putting for the right reasons, it can be every bit as unnerving as “Suspiria” 1977, even though Guadagnino and his collaborators take a deeper under-the-skin approach to suspense. Whereas no one could accuse Argento’s lush lighting schemes or Goblin’s iconic score that literally screams the word “witch!” of being subtle, “Suspiria” 2018 tempers tension with more mesmeric moods. Wicked whispers accent aural ambiance. Thom Yorke’s hypnotic music calculatingly casts a slow spell. The bleak coldness of the Berlin backdrop is equally exquisite to look at as the original’s settings, but in a macabre manner that seeps into the mind as much as it does the eyes.

Being effective at suggestively setting stages for nightmarish surrealism makes the frenzied flip into the finale all the more astonishing. “Suspiria” features an unforgettable ending whose visual vividness transfixes with terror. Act Six alone erases a fair amount of unfavorable impressions with a takeaway taste highlighting the film’s distinct tonal horror.

Even bearing a bevy of imperfections, “Suspiria” fires on numerous frequencies more meaningful than the ones that only flicker. Powerful performances, bountiful production design, and engrossing fiction count among elements magnetizing audience eyes.

Multifaceted on many levels, “Suspiria’s” density demands, yet earns, repeat viewings to uncover all of its secrets and to divine every thematic thread. One time around the block seems insufficient to fully grasp every unspoken fear of change, identity, oppression, and empowerment, but the first watch still does not feel like an incomplete experience.

Intangible elements open to interpretation are such peripheral support that mild confusion enhances the quality of dreamy witchiness without detracting from engagement in the narrative. Regardless of subjective opinion, “Suspiria” inspires conversations concerning content, intent, and effect worthy of extensive dissection by serious and armchair students of genre cinema alike. For myriad reasons, “Suspiria” can be an exhausting experience. It can also be an exhilarating one on those exact same grounds.

NOTE: There is a post-credits scene.

Review Score: 75

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