Following "Death Wish," "Papillon" and "A Star is Born," yet another film from the 1970s gets remade this year. This time, it is Italian director Dario Argento's 1977 horror film "Suspiria," starring Jessica Harper and Joan Bennett among a predominantly European cast. This was Argento's biggest box office hit in the USA and the best reviewed film of his career. I had seen the original "Suspiria" and was actually surprised with its popularity. While I can see why it became a cult classic, critical acclaim I did not exactly expect.
American ballet Suzy Bannion went to Freiburg, Germany to train under the Tanz Dance Academy. Ever since her arrival, Suzy began to observe strange goings-on in the school, starting from the elegant headmistress Madame Blanc and the brusque instructor Ms. Tanner to her fellow students, Patricia (who ran away from school the day Suzy arrived) and Sara (who seemed to be a paranoid wreck about everything).
To be honest, the acting and the story were not exactly remarkable. However, this film was memorable because of two things. First is its very glossy, brightly-colored visuals care of cinematographer Luciano Tovoli and opulent production design care of Giuseppe Bassan. Second is its eerily syncopated rock musical score care of Italian band Goblin. I remember maybe two of its most disturbing scenes, both involving things falling out of a ceiling -- one was the dead body of a girl, the next was a major maggot infestation.
This so-called remake this year by director Luca Guadagnino was actually not a remake. It had the same initial premise of an American girl Susie Bannion wanting to train in contemporary dance under her idol Madame Blanc in the Markos Dance Academy in Berlin. However, Guadagnino's more ambitious script and more grandiloquent direction took the story to a totally different place, way way beyond Argento's much simpler tale.
This new update involved the character of psychiatrist Dr. Josef Klemperer and his interest in the secrets of the matrons in the dance academy when his patient Patricia disappeared. Much later, he would also be obsessed in finding out what happened to his wife Anke Meier, a subplot of a subplot that seemed to be totally off the topic of the dance academy, and yet still it was given so much screen time.
Guadagnino's storytelling swelled up Argento's mere 98-minute compact running time to an unexpectedly protracted 158 minutes -- with six acts and an epilogue. For me, I felt every minute of that full hour of extra time. It came to a point when the proceedings were already felt interminable. Those recurrent television reports about a hijacking of a plane by terrorists felt pointless. In contrast with Argento's loud and vivid vision, Guadagnino opted for a more subdued score (by Thom Yorke) and color palette (by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom).
Three major scenes stood out in this new version, and they all involved dancing. Oddly, there was hardly any dancing at all in the first movie, but it was front-and-center in this new one. The first one is the best, and probably the scene for which this film will be remembered for-- the scene where Susie's strong emphatic dance moves was inadvertently killing another girl trapped in a locked room of mirrors. The pretzel-like aftermath was a hauntingly grotesque image hard to unsee.
The second dance number was the actual public performance of Blanc's dance masterpiece "Volk" in front of a paying audience. The red ribbons - white panties ensemble was not exactly sexy, however the execution of the powerful dance moves and the way it was caught on camera was electric. The climactic final dance number involved naked dancers wildly writhing and whipping their hair around in a disconcerting ceremonial ritual. Together with the editing and the music, these dances left an unsettling impression on the audience.
Dakota Johnson stepped out of her nubile "50 Shades" character into another one here. Compared to Harper's weak submissive Suzy, Johnson's Susie was more aggressive and fearless, driven by a strong desire to dominate. Information about Susie being brought up by a strict conservative Mennonite mother may have added dimension to her personality development, but these details also added to the confusing excess of the film.
Tilda Swinton can fill up a screen by just standing there. Tall and masterful, her Madame Blanc was an intimidating force to reckon with. Reading up about the film after watching, I was surprised to learn that Swinton also played two more important characters in the film, albeit totally unrecognizable under layers of prosthetics. I guess Guadagnino did not want any male actor in the main cast at all to make a point. Otherwise, I thought it was a self-indulgent casting decision.
Chloe Grace Moretz played Patricia Hingle. We see her unhinged in Dr. Klemperer's room in the first act, but too bad that was also that last time we see her face. Mia Goth played Sara, who was more proactive here than in the original, as she dared to investigate rather than just be paranoid. Angela Winkler, Renee Soutendijk and Alek Wek played sinister dance matrons. A nice tribute to the first film was the cameo of the original Suzy, Jessica Harper, in a touching reunion scene in Act 6.
Guadagnino's "Suspiria" is a polarizing pretentious work of art. It is both beautiful and ugly. It is both profound and meaningless. There was so much room to improve on Argento's original, but Guadagnino aimed for too high and overshot way beyond where it was supposed to land. He did not seem to know how to wrap his magnum monster all up at the end, and gave us a head-scratcher of an epilogue to dash all our interpretations prior to it. This is strictly for the art house crowd, but I suspect even the most high brow of them will not know what to make of this messy melange.
Dario Argento's "Suspiria" 6/10. Luca Guadagnino's "Suspiria": 5/10.
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