Suspiria (2018 film)

A remake of Suspiria was first announced in 2008 after Guadagnino had acquired the rights from the original film's writers, Argento and Daria Nicolodi. Guadagnino offered the film to David Gordon Green, but that project was eventually canceled due to financing conflicts. In September 2015, Guadagnino confirmed his plans to direct, describing his version as an "homage" to the original rather than a straightforward remake. A new screenplay was drafted by Kajganich, who had written Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash the year before. Kajganich set the film during the so-called "German Autumn" of 1977 in order to explore themes of generational guilt in that country during the Cold War. The film's other themes include motherhood, evil and the dynamics of matriarchies.


Unlike the original film, which used exaggerated colors, Guadagnino conceived the visuals in Suspiria as "winterish" and bleak, absent of primary colors. The film incorporates stylized dance sequences choreographed by Damien Jalet, which form part of its representation of witchcraft. Principal photography took place in late 2016 and early 2017 in Varese, Italy, and in Berlin. The musical score was composed by Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who took inspiration from krautrock. The film is dedicated to the memories of Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, film director Jonathan Demme and Deborah Falzone.


Suspiria premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2018. It was given a limited release by Amazon Studios in Los Angeles and New York on October 26, 2018, where it grossed over $180,000 in its opening weekend, marking the highest screen-average box-office launch of the year. It was screened on October 31 in some U.S. cities before opening in wide release on November 2, 2018. It was released in Italy on January 1, 2019, by Videa.


A box-office bomb, critical response was polarized; some praised it for its visual elements and acting, while others criticized its historical-political setting as unnecessary or arbitrary in relation to its other themes.

Plot[edit]

During the German Autumn of 1977, Susie Bannion, an American from a Mennonite family in Ohio, is admitted at the Markos Dance Academy in West Berlin. The academy is reeling from the disappearance of a student, Patricia Hingle, who vanished after telling her psychotherapist, Josef Klemperer, that the academy is controlled by a coven. Journals left by Patricia in Klemperer's office detail The Three Mothers, a trio of witches who predate Christianity: Mater Suspiriorum, Mater Tenebrarum, and Mater Lachrymarum. Klemperer, initially dismissive of Patricia's claims, becomes suspicious of the academy after her disappearance.


During rehearsal, a Soviet student, Olga, becomes indignant towards Madame Blanc, and storms out of the studio. Olga attempts to escape with her belongings, but finds herself trapped alone in a room lined with mirrors. Blanc, meanwhile, resumes the rehearsal, during which Susie performs an aggressive dance; her movements begin physically inflicting Olga, ravaging her body and damaging her organs and bones. Several of the academy's matrons drag Olga's mangled body away with large hooks. Later, the matrons hold an informal election for who is to serve as the coven's new leader. The vote is between Madame Blanc and Mother Markos, an aged and grossly disfigured witch who has long controlled the coven, and for whom the academy is named; Markos wins the popular vote. Afterwards, Miss Griffith, the most sheepish of the matrons, kills herself.


Susie befriends her classmate Sara, where one another investigate the disappearances of Olga and Patricia: both find out the academy has washed all traces of them. Susie quickly climbs the ranks as Blanc's protégée, then appointed the lead of the academy's upcoming piece, Volk. Meanwhile, Sara grows suspicious of the matrons after a meeting with Klemperer and uncovers clandestine hallways in the building where she discovers esoteric relics. Klemperer attends the performance. Immediately prior, Sara explores a passageway leading into catacombs where she finds a heavily withering Patricia. Sara runs away but the matrons manifest holes in the floor, causing her to fall and fracture her leg. Midway through the performance, Sara emerges, dancing with robotic precision despite her fractured leg; Sara and Susie have swapped eye colour. The dance ends abruptly when Sara collapses, shrieking in pain. As Klemperer exits, he sees Sara's changed eyes and leaves unnerved. Blanc subsequently chastises Susie for intervening in the matrons' efforts to manipulate Sara's body.


The next day, Susie attends a celebratory dinner with the matrons. Meanwhile, Klemperer encounters Anke, his presumed-deceased wife, at his dacha in East Germany. She tells him she faked her death after fleeing the Nazis and started a new life in England. They walk together, passing through a security checkpoint into West Berlin without being noticed. Klemperer realizes the two have arrived at the Markos Academy; before his eyes, he realizes Anke is, in fact, Miss Huller, one of the matrons, and that he has been lured there to bear witness to an impending witches' sabbath.


After the dinner, Susie returns to the academy and is led to a chamber where Blanc and the other matrons await with an incapacitated Klemperer. Overlooking the scene is Mother Markos—Susie is to be her new vessel. Susie renounces her own mother, who simultaneously succumbs on her deathbed in Ohio. The matrons disembowel Sara to begin the sabbath, but Blanc senses a discrepancy. Hesistant to proceed, she is nearly decapitated by Markos. As Blanc bleeds profusely, Susie reveals that she, not Markos, is Mother Suspiriorum; she is there to claim the academy and eradicate Markos. Susie summons Death, killing Markos and her most faithful matrons, sparing only those devoted to Blanc. Patricia, Olga, and Sara, each physically ravaged, plead to die, which Susie grants them.


The following day, the academy resumes operations as usual. Miss Vendegast discovers Blanc on the verge of death, and an announcement is made: Blanc's leadership will be assumed by Susie. Meanwhile, Klemperer, who was spared and now confined to his bed, is met by Susie at his home. She recounts to him the fate of Anke, who died at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Upon her touching him, he suffers a violent seizure that erases his memories, and Susie leaves. Susie stares approvingly at something outside the academy.

While Susie/Mother Suspiriorum shows no mercy for Markos and her followers, Goldberg asserts that she is capable of compassion, citing the fact that she grants the physically devastated Sara, Olga, and Patricia "the sweet release of a gentle death rather than obliterating them."^[8] Goldberg extends this interpretation to Susie/Mother Suspiriorum's visit to Klemperer in the epilogue, during which she relates his lost wife's death in a concentration camp, information he had not previously known.^[8] Goldberg reads the sequence as an emphasis that "women bonding together have the power to remove the fear of death, and that while the world—especially the powerful—need 'guilt' and 'shame,' Klemperer should not feel those things because he has not abused his power. He's the "witness" and from the perspective of witnessing an authoritarian rise to power—in his case, Nazi Germany—he is responsible for watching and doing nothing. However, it's people in power who need guilt and shame."^[8]


Some critics have alternately interpreted the representation of the coven's power as inspiring fear of women's autonomy and linking it solely with violence.^[11][12] Sonia Rao of The Washington Post notes that while "Guadagnino grants these women power", their power "knows no bounds. Madam Blanc...  can turn Susie's dreams into bloodcurdling nightmares. She and the other matrons can inflict injuries on dancers whenever and wherever they want. The witches frequently inflict or inspire violence—their actions, after all, are what make this a horror movie. But some critics say this makes it seem like a woman with a great amount of power is someone who should be feared."^[12] The Chicago Reader's Andrea Thompson echoes this sentiment, writing that the film adopts a vision where "when women are united, it is always to achieve an evil outcome."^[13] Andrew Whalen of Newsweek conversely suggests that the film "decimat[es] typical narrative conventions of good and bad...  Evil is disturbingly natural in Suspiria, where sometimes only further violence can make room for good to exist at all."^[14] Whalen characterizes the coven as "a working alternative to the patriarchy falling apart outside [the] doors—financially autonomous, beyond the reach of the police...  and deeply, powerfully collectivist, both materially and spiritually."^[14]


The narrative of the coven and Susie/Mother Suspiriorum's infiltration of it is underpinned by numerous historical incidents, including the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, bombings, and numerous kidnappings perpetrated by the Red Army Faction, a Marxist group whose peak activity occurred in the autumn of 1977 in West Germany.^[15] These events occurred in the wake of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, a period referring to Germany's national reflection on their culpability in World War II and the Holocaust,^[16] which "echoes constantly throughout" the film.^[17] While Goldberg^[8] has pointed out correlations between the coven's innerworkings and the national events occurring outside of it, others, such as Simon Abrams of The Hollywood Reporter, view them as "surface-level parallels between historic signifiers" that "have the odd effect of subordinating those female-centered themes to a blandly familiar grab bag of sensationalistic headlines."^[18] Abrams concludes that the film offers "an underdeveloped, pseudo-Jungian understanding of how historical events kinda/sorta overshadow their protagonists' lives."^[18]