Sus­piria – first look review

“It’s all a mess, isn’t it,” offers Dako­ta John­son towards the end of Sus­piria. Well, quite. This is Luca Guadagnino’s bizarre reimag­in­ing of Dario Argento’s cult Euro-shock­er from 1977. The word ​‘cult’ is key, because while the film was some­thing of an unex­pect­ed com­mer­cial hit in the US – fol­low­ing sig­nif­i­cant edits made to secure the desired R‑rating – it wasn’t until 1988 that the full, uncut ver­sion was made avail­able to a wider audi­ence on VHS. So how has Guadagni­no trans­lat­ed this clas­sic low-bud­get gial­li – with its omi­nous sound design, expres­sion­ist visu­als and crude­ly over­dubbed dia­logue – into a big tick­et stu­dio offering?

For starters, he’s added an hour to the run­time, arrang­ing the sto­ry into six acts and an epi­logue. Which is not to say his film packs a big­ger phan­tas­magoric punch. Because although Guadagni­no grad­u­al­ly dials up the freaky dur­ing the film’s slow­burn first hour, it plays out more like a drunk­en stum­ble in the dark than a dread-filled danse macabre. And what a dingy, ugly film it is. The Ital­ian direc­tor pre­vi­ous­ly teamed up with Thai DoP Say­omb­hu Mukdeep­rom to intox­i­cat­ing effect in 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, but this time around the cin­e­matog­ra­phy is murky and flat, Guadagni­no favour­ing low-con­trast light­ing and a mut­ed palette over eye-pop­ping pri­ma­ry colours. The set design, too, is drab and inel­e­gant, dimin­ish­ing the char­ac­ter and aes­thet­ic impact of the Art Deco interiors.

The set­ting is Berlin cir­ca 1977. Susie Ban­nion (John­son), a shy but prodi­gious dancer hail­ing from Ohio, has just joined the world-renowned Markos Dance Acad­e­my, run by the aus­tere and mys­te­ri­ous Madame Blanc (Til­da Swin­ton). Hav­ing already made a big impres­sion in her audi­tion, Susie’s tal­ent instant­ly shines through and she quick­ly becomes an object of fas­ci­na­tion among the all-female staff and stu­dents. But then strange things start hap­pen­ing, and there’s a creep­ing sense that the girls are some­how trapped inside this grand old build­ing – bound not only by its walls but by the con­crete struc­ture that divides the city, and which stands just a few metres away from the academy’s front steps. Or per­haps they’re being drawn to some­thing, gripped by an imper­ceiv­able, all-pow­er­ful force.

There are signs every­where you look in this film. Some are lit­er­al, like a cross-stitched pic­ture spelling out the poet­ic verse ​‘A moth­er is she who can take the place of oth­ers, but whose place no one else can take,’ and a cry of defi­ance writ­ten in graf­fi­ti, ​‘Frei­heit Für Alle’. Oth­ers are sym­bol­ic, like the unmis­tak­able yon­ic shapes that appear spo­rad­i­cal­ly through­out (seri­ous­ly, there is So. Much. Vagi­na. in this movie). As the main sto­ry­line unfolds, seem­ing­ly impor­tant infor­ma­tion about var­i­ous char­ac­ters is par­celled out, such as Susie’s Amish upbring­ing (as if that auto­mat­i­cal­ly makes her weird or untrust­wor­thy), with­out actu­al­ly telling us any­thing about them. The script repeat­ed­ly empha­sis­es themes of rebirth, reli­gion and every­day human rit­u­als but doesn’t have a great deal to say about any of it.

Guadagni­no also draws our atten­tion to the sociopo­lit­i­cal tur­moil Ger­many was expe­ri­enc­ing in the late 1970s, inter­mit­tent­ly cut­ting to break­ing news reports on the kid­nap­ping and even­tu­al mur­der of the indus­tri­al leader Hanns Mar­tin Schley­er at the hands of the Baad­er-Mein­hof Gang. It’s hard to fig­ure out what exact­ly Guadagni­no and screen­writer David Kaj­ganich are try­ing to achieve by insert­ing fac­tu­al sub­plots into a super­nat­ur­al hor­ror cen­tred around a clan­des­tine coven. If mak­ing allu­sions to the Holo­caust is their way of ele­vat­ing pro­ceed­ings, it doesn’t work. At best, it’s a crass attempt at pathos.

Sus­piria is even more both­er­some on a tech­ni­cal lev­el. The cam­era move­ment see­saws between glacial push-ins and wob­bly crash zooms, cre­at­ing a jar­ring visu­al tone. Rapid-cut mon­tages com­pris­ing ran­dom night­mar­ish images – a toi­let clogged with hair, a woman’s face drenched in blood, an earth­worm writhing on a bath­room coun­ter­top – amount to very lit­tle beyond imply­ing a character’s dis­turbed psy­che. Instances of sub-David Cro­nen­berg body hor­ror are agree­ably grue­some but feel styl­is­ti­cal­ly at odds with the rest of the film. The dance chore­og­ra­phy is more sil­ly than unset­tling. The already infa­mous scene of bone-snap­ping muti­la­tion that sup­pos­ed­ly prompt­ed walk­outs at an ear­ly footage pre­view bor­ders on tor­ture porn, though it’s great to see Guadagni­no util­is­ing old-school prac­ti­cal effects. And Goblin’s icon­ic score from the orig­i­nal is replaced by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke war­bling incomprehensibly.

Swin­ton makes her sec­ond appear­ance in the film (she doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly stop there) as an elder­ly male psy­chi­a­trist named Dr Jozef Klem­per­er, who lost his wife in the War and is now search­ing for a miss­ing girl named Patri­cia (Chloë Grace Moretz in a small, thank­less role), a for­mer client and Markos stu­dent. Odd­ly enough the role of Klem­per­er is offi­cial­ly cred­it­ed to one Lutz Ebers­dorf, an appar­ent­ly real-life octo­ge­nar­i­an first-time actor who even has his own IMDb page. Why both­er going to all that trou­ble when the truth is as plain as the pros­thet­ic nose on Swinton’s face?

At one point Klem­per­er reads a pas­sage from Patricia’s diary that con­tains a direct ref­er­ence to Argento’s ​‘Three Moth­ers’ tril­o­gy: ​“Mater Tene­brarum, Mater Lachry­marum, Mater Sus­piri­o­rum.” These are the names of the ancient evil spir­its Patri­cia believes are behind the ghast­ly goings on at the acad­e­my, and she hand­i­ly pro­vides an expla­na­tion for what each one rep­re­sents. ​“Dark­ness, Tears and Sighs.” Sus­piria is cer­tain­ly a dark film, and it may well cause you to sigh or even bring you to tears. Just not for the rea­sons you were prob­a­bly expecting.