Suspiria [reviewed by Lackey]

Suspiria Dario Argento, 1977 (93 min.)
Language: English (some dubbed dialogue)
My rating:
IMDB

Maybe one day we can team Argento up with someone who can actually write a story and we’ll have a genuinely great horror movie, maybe the greatest ever made, but until then we’re stuck with Suspiria.

* * *

Premise

Suzy Bannion, an aspiring American dancer, has arrived at the prestigious Tanz Academie in Freiberg, Germany to study ballet. But she hasn’t had time to settle in before becoming embroiled in the school’s mysteries and intrigues. Why did former student Pat Hingle flee the school in the night? Who is responsible for her vicious and elaborate murder, and what secrets did she learn before her death? Who is the school’s shadowy “directress,” and why is she never seen by the students? And where do the school’s staff go after lights-out?

Critique

Let’s be honest about something when it comes to Dario Argento. He’s got a fantastic eye. I don’t think there’s anyone living in the horror movie biz who takes prettier pictures than Argento, even (especially) when they’re of disturbing and disgusting things such as people being killed in brutal and elaborate fashion. The problem is (based on my admittedly shallow knowledge of his work—I’ve only seen this, Inferno, Phenomena and one of his Masters of Horror episodes, “Jenifer”) that it seems that taking pretty pictures is all he’s good at. Which is nothing to sneeze at, but there’s a certain quality his work seems to be lacking and it prevents me from fully engaging with his films. Suspiria seems to be his magnum opus and most highly regarded film. Certainly whenever someone comes up with a list of the xty greatest or scariest horror movies ever made, Suspiria tends to hover towards the top of that list. Why? I can’t figure it out.

There are three fairly striking murder scenes—one of which seems to happen for no apparent reason, and a second which is fairly tense until you sit down and think about it and come to the realization that, hey, this makes no sense whatsoever. Especially when you consider the fact that the Big Bad and her little clutch of droogies have no motivation for what they’re doing beyond the fact that they’re witches and therefore evil. Seriously—what are their goals? Why are they operating a dance school? For that matter, what do ballet and the ock-oolt (as everyone pronounces it) sciences have to do with each other? This is actually a pleasingly Lovecraftian idea, but it’s never elaborated on.

I mean, I guess murder scenes are scary, especially when they involve a young woman’s face get mashed against a window, then involve her being stabbed repeatedly, then involve her getting thrown through a skylight with a telephone cord tied around her waist so when she falls and comes to the end of the line the cord slips up around her neck and hangs her, geddit? I can appreciate that it’s a well-executed deathtrap, beautifully staged, but I have no connection to the character, no engagement to what’s happening to her or why and no reason to care other than that she’s an Attractive Young Lady in Peril. (And death by hanging almost always pushes my buttons, so that I feel nothing when I watch this really bugs me.)

So basically you have these set pieces—the murder scenes plus a couple of other striking scenes, including (I’m not kidding you) maggots raining from the dorm ceiling—and they’re linked by the thinnest membrane of a storyline. Okay, yeah, if you watch it about three or four times you might be able to figure out why the rain of maggots is an important plot point. But it still doesn’t lead to any clarification of things that don’t make sense or explanation of things we probably should be told. Yes, I understand that the Italians tended not to give a monkey’s about a coherent plot (all together now: “There is no confusion like Fulci confusion…”). But these tantalizing fragments—they intrigued me. It seemed that more was afoot than the typical “um, maybe the Blair Witch did it and maybe she didn’t” bullshit and I wanted to know what it was. I wanted to know more and I was disappointed that I was given so little.

All of this is punctuated some questionable acting (yes, I understand that this is one of those Dubbed European Films, but really), and dialogue that runs the gamut from “stilted” to “ripe.” It’s the sort of film where characters are ostensibly engaged in conversations but they use the sort of inflections one would use when talking to oneself. I kinda expect this from rank noob Jessica Harper (who plays Suzy), but even Alida Valli (of Eyes Without a Face fame—she plays sinister instructor Miss Tanner) and Joan Bennett (of Dark Shadows fame—she plays the Academie’s haughty “vice directress,” Madame Blanc) fall into this trap, and I was under the impression that they were respected actresses. (I was particularly amused by the way Bennett said the words “fifty of your American dollars”—as if Bennett weren’t playing Blanc as an American.)

Oh look, it’s Udo Kier.

And it’s particularly infuriating because, and I keep coming back to this point because it’s important, Suspiria is, visually, a beautiful film—perhaps the most beautiful horror film ever made. Argento’s use of camera angled, of locations, of colored light…this is all genius. He’s even helped by the coloring process—Suspiria was the last film processed by the Italian Technicolor plant before it closed, and the use of what was called “imbibition printing” resulted in a much richer and vivid palette than was common. It was the same process that was used for the color sequences in The Wizard of Oz, if that gives you any idea of what this film looks like. The visuals, on their own, add at least one star, maybe two, to the film’s final rating. They’re great visuals, but great as they are, they’re the only compelling reason to see Suspiria.

Moment of Zen

I’m sure every prestigious European ballet academy keeps a secret room filled with razor wire somewhere on their premises, just in case.

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