¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019
Candidate #10
(September 2018)
"They are professional performers. Illusion is their craft.”
The best word I can come up with for Luca
Guadagnino’s Suspiria (billed as “Six
Acts and an Epilogue Set in Divided Berlin”), is reimagining.
While the opening credits tell us that the script
by David Kajganich is still “Based on the Original Screenplay by Dario Argento
and Daria Nicolodi,” this Suspiria
takes the bare narrative bones of a young American accepted to a dance academy
that hides a sinister secret, and lushly fleshes it out, in both theme and
character, giving us something at once familiar, and yet bracingly, beguilingly
new.
Or, to use the appropriate metaphor, it’s generally
the same dance, but it’s set to a different tempo, so it’s got a different
rhythm, and it boasts some new, brazenly daring choreography.
“When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of
its creator. You empty yourself, so that her work can live within you.
“Do you understand?”
Some of those new steps are immediately introduced
to us.
Even before Susanna Bannion of Ohio (Dakota
Johnson) is welcomed into the Helena Markos Tanzgruppe, we meet Josef Klemperer
(“Lutz Ebersdorf”*), psychiatrist to Chloë Grace Moretz’s Patricia Hingle (a
name that should ring some bells from the original).
And while Argento bound himself largely to the dark
fairy tale setting of the Tanz Academie, Guadagnino and Kajganich choose to
frame the action against historical events in a “Divided Berlin,” tossing
politics (including sexual), societal upheaval, and the long, twisted shadow of
the Holocaust into this witches’ brew.
With a full hour more running time than the
original, this Suspiria uses that
additional time masterfully so motivations come more clearly into focus, and
dance becomes even more pivotal and central to the narrative.
“Movement is never mute. It is a language. It’s a series of energetic
shapes written in the air like words forming sentences.
“Like poems.
“Like prayers.”
Dance as magick.
Movement as vector for intent and desire,
unleashing power more potentially destructive than bombs.
These come forcefully to the surface in this reimagining,
as does Argento’s Three Mothers mythology.
As Klemperer recounts:
“Patricia wrote about ‘Three Mothers,’ lost in time, predating all
Christian invention. Pre-God. Pre-Devil.
“Mother Tenebrarum, Mother Lachrymarum, and Mother Suspiriorum.
“Darkness, Tears, and Sighs.”
We may not be treated to the added layer of their
three Houses just yet, but the basic mythological foundation is here for our
inspection.
All these, and more, all discrete steps in this shadowy
dance, which builds steadily, crescendoing in a completely batsh!t Grand
Guignol finale, before segueing into a surprisingly moving Epilogue.
(Plus, Argento’s Suzy Bannion, Jessica Harper,
makes a crucial appearance!)
While it’s safe to say that this was clearly
another very serious instance of “Manage
Your Expectations, Space Monkey,” I am relieved to announce that this is a
dance I was very glad to have witnessed.
“You can give someone your delusion, Sara. That’s religion.”
* I could go on about the whole Tilda Swinton of it
all (and she is amazing here, as
always), but that would just detract from the whole, so let’s just leave that
where it is, and simply bathe in the witchy glow of this powerful and potent “reimagining”
without those added distractions.
Parting Shot: Reviews for Argento’s original “Three
Mothers” trilogy can be found here, here, and here.
Given my opinions of Inferno and La Terza Madre,
I honestly wouldn’t mind some more reimaginings of this type.
Parting Shot 2: Kajganich also wrote the script for
The Invasion (review here), but that
was butchered thanks to studio/test audience interference, so we’re not holding
that against him.
He also co-wrote the script for the upcoming Pet Sematary remake, from Starry Eyes’ Kevin Kölsch and Dennis
Widmyer, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that one. (Definitely another case of “Manage Your Expectations, Space Monkey.”)
(Suspiria OS’
courtesy of impawards.com.)