Why I love Dako­ta Johnson’s per­for­mance in Suspiria

Susie Ban­nion is born unto us as a hes­i­tant girl nav­i­gat­ing the Berlin U‑Bahn. With her clunky bag and map in hand, it would be easy to mis­take her for a scared fresh­man uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent attempt­ing to make it on her own for the first time. This ear­ly sequence in Luca Guadagnino’s Sus­piria remake (or, as he called it, an ​“homage”) is decep­tive­ly aver­age, much like Susie her­self. She is a lapsed Amer­i­can Men­non­ite whose only out­stand­ing traits appear to be her danc­ing abil­i­ty and the glint in her eye. How­ev­er, under Dako­ta Johnson’s deft hand, that hint of qui­et ambi­tion reveals itself to be some­thing dark­er and more liberating.

It is clear ear­ly in the film that Susie is eager to prove her­self. As she rehears­es the Volk dance with vigour, her body unknow­ing­ly con­tort­ing for the devi­ous pur­pos­es of the coven, we can sense some­thing awak­en­ing in her. John­son breathes ani­mal­is­ti­cal­ly, her face becomes steel. She grows ever more sure of her­self, and her phys­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties reveal a greater inner pow­er than any­one may have antic­i­pat­ed. Her expe­ri­ences are vis­cer­al, from the rehearsals to the night ter­rors she expe­ri­ences, every moment in ser­vice of some­thing big­ger than her­self. ​“I wan­na be this company’s hands,” she says, a breathy excla­ma­tion of desire to hold the pow­er of the coven and mould it like clay. Scene by scene she becomes more present, more in con­trol of her own narrative.

In her per­for­mance, John­son empha­sis­es sub­tle char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion. Shy smiles and qui­et mum­bles soon give way to intense eye con­tact and ardent sug­ges­tions to her supe­ri­ors, some­times in the same scene, as in the office meet­ing with Madame Blanc (Til­da Swin­ton). It is here that her mul­ti­tudes are most keen­ly felt, shift­ing to the cen­tre of the room as she plain­ly reveals – her eyes trained on Blanc’s every move, a smile play­ing on her lips – that she used to sneak off to New York City to watch Blanc dance.

Though the Volk recital is a nar­ra­tive turn­ing point, Susie’s trans­for­ma­tion has already begun by this point in the film. Incre­men­tal changes, sig­nalled through increas­ing­ly assured move­ments and Johnson’s dis­con­cert­ing gaze, build to the reveal of Moth­er Sus­piri­o­rum until there is no oth­er ratio­nal con­clu­sion. Her ner­vous ener­gy is replaced with a sense of pur­pose. Who else would be strong and yet unas­sum­ing enough to destroy Markos’ reign of ter­ror? John­son is the most dis­ori­ent­ing thing about the film, always chang­ing and throw­ing us off bal­ance as she slow­ly over­whelms us with a dark­er, more com­mand­ing presence.

We all have aspects of our­selves that seem to come out of nowhere; cre­ative pas­sions, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tions, desires to be some­thing dif­fer­ent than life seemed to have planned for us. As Susie chas­es her own desire, she grows into an innate pow­er that she choos­es to use to cre­ate a more just world. It’s no won­der John­son has amassed a ded­i­cat­ed fol­low­ing of young queer women who relate to Susie. Like them, she had to go through many small epipha­nies to accept her true iden­ti­ty and worth. Susie’s place as a woman who lives among oth­er women, and express­es no inter­est in men, only adds to the par­al­lels between her arc and the jour­ney of queer womanhood.

To lend fur­ther cre­dence to this, Susie reject­ed her con­ser­v­a­tive upbring­ing in favour of mov­ing to Berlin to attend an all-girls school. The kind­ness and cama­raderie she shows class­mates Olga and Patri­cia is heart­felt, and the rela­tion­ship she has with Madame Blanc is some­what sex­u­al­ly charged. Her place as Moth­er Sus­piri­o­rum is one of homoso­cial bond­ing and ded­i­ca­tion to women’s lives, while her slow real­i­sa­tion of who she is par­al­lels that of many women com­ing into their sexuality.

In Guadagnino’s world, Susie is Moth­er Sus­piri­o­rum, one of the Three Moth­ers whom the coven of Markos Dance Acad­e­my wor­ships. This inter­pre­ta­tion is dif­fer­ent from the orig­i­nal Suzy, who remains an out­sider to the coven in Dario Argento’s ver­sion. It is what sep­a­rates this film from the straight­for­ward gore and show­man­ship of its pre­de­ces­sor. Per­haps it wasn’t what some Argen­to devo­tees craved, but this new vision of Susie Ban­nion has res­onat­ed with me and many oth­er women attempt­ing to come into our own.

Dur­ing the final sab­bath, Susie is at her full pow­er, hav­ing decid­ed that she will ful­fill her des­tiny, and that it will be beau­ti­ful. The destruc­tion of the cult pro­vides cathar­sis for her, sig­nalling an end to every­thing that she thought she knew. The pow­er being abused in her vicin­i­ty had to be tak­en down for this to be achieved, just as cap­i­tal­ist cor­rup­tion, exclu­sion­ary fem­i­nism and fas­cism must be dis­man­tled for true women’s lib­er­a­tion. She aligns her­self with the vic­timised women of the cult and grants them the mer­ci­ful death they crave. In the after­math, she dances with the remain­ing women, embrac­ing the free­dom of a life with­out sub­jec­tion. The scene is bru­tal but she grounds it with her slow move­ments and gen­tle tone.

In doing so, she became her own moth­er, grant­i­ng her­self and oth­ers the rad­i­cal accep­tance she had pre­vi­ous­ly been denied. ​“I am she,” she intones. It’s a weighty state­ment of iden­ti­ty, one that clear­ly res­onates with queer women as a moment of trans­for­ma­tive per­son­al growth. The pos­si­bil­i­ties opened up by watch­ing Susie at the height of her pow­er are elec­tri­fy­ing. What can we become if we accept cer­tain truths about our­selves? If we define our­selves on our terms as Susie does? It may be fright­en­ing and phys­i­cal­ly exhaust­ing, but to accept the allure of our own innate pow­er is to embrace fate.