Suspiria 1977

Fig 1: Movie Poster

Suspiria follows young ballet student Suzy attending a prestigious ballet school in Germany, from the moment she arrives strange things start taking place, a student running away from the school yells “Iris” and “Secret” to someone inside before sprinting away to a hotel room where she is brutally killed in a horrific way by some demon thing you can’t quite make out until the very end. Not letting Suzy into the building she returns the next day, when being introduced and shown around, the police are questioning the heads of the school. From there on its more murders and mystery that to some degree gets answered but in the end everyone escapes and thats enough - you don’t want to know the rest. 

The plot is good as a good mystery holds your attention but at moments that attention gets lost and its not long before you’re back in the plot. “Argento doesn’t rush things. He gently pulls you from scene to scene, ... deliberately presenting you with puzzle pieces at every juncture without ever letting you see the picture on the box. Suzy never completes the puzzle. You never complete the puzzle.” (Hall, 2016).

Another praise for Suspiria is its cinematography, the use of the newly invented (at the time) steady cam, the close ups, the set designs and most importantly the colour scheme used to create atmosphere and convey suspense. It’s fair to say that “Suspiria could be criticised for its lack of story, for how it emphasises atmosphere over plotting, lavishing attention on individual scenes while letting the overall structure feel a little shaggy.” (Hall, 2016).

An interesting way to look at Suspiria is like a dream, we all believe the school is a real place and we watch the scenes as if everything is real like we would in a dream, Argento knows that we are at our most curious when we are sleeping so like Suzy we subconsciously follow her into the depths of the school and all its secrets. The title Suspiria is a perfect one from the Latin phrase “Suspiria de profundis" meaning "sighs from the depths” it’s these sighs from the depths the film investigates.

Fig 2: Colour Atmosphere

Colour is key to conveying the surreality of this nightmare, the blue lighting to reflect nighttime/moonlight is too blue for the real world, inside the reds are too strong, these two colours alone speak volume, blue for sadness and sorrow and calm juxtaposed next to the burning red of danger, (see fig 2). The colours of Suspiria are beautiful, but they’re deadly and are like sirens making the audience aware of certain doom, acting like warnings, declaring when it is time for the characters to flee. “These colours are an unnatural assault on logic, a constant reminder that you are inhabiting a dream. That no one takes notice of their unnatural world only heightens the unease. No one knows how unsafe they truly are.” (Hall, 2016).

Another reflection of the unnatural world is the sets, the sets are supposed to look human made yet the artificialness increases its power, the Iris office set could be the best example (see fig 3), when Suzy goes further into the depths of this inhuman place she discovers black magic - using voodoo to kill students of this school. Decorating a wall with Irises obviously means something, Irises are planted on the graves of women in hope of summoning the Goddess Iris to guide the deceased on their journey to heaven. It has been raised that maybe Argento has a hatred for women that’s why women mainly die in his films and the Iris is so symbolic to this film, it can be argued that the Iris is a symbol or royalty, valour, hope and faith so either that’s how he sees women - respectfully or thats the reason he wants to kill us all of… It’s interesting he used witches as the villain - only female magical villains and maybe their magical abilities is what makes them royal. So many possibilities Argento leaves us with. 

Dream World

The whole unnatural/surreal theme Argento’s got going on works well like a web, everything links and supports the film, the voodoo in the plot backed up by the sets, displayed with enhanced colours is admired.

On the negative side, like all horror’s we watch the cliché of characters making poor choices infuriating the audience for example when Sara is about to be killed, the killer is trying to lift the latch witch a blade whilst she squirms in the corner, all she had to do was hold the latch down but no she decided to trip over some boxes, climb out a window and land in some barbed wire which she wriggles even more to get out of only making it easier for the killer to slit her throat. Some scenes are very disturbing (see fig 4) but you’re reminded it’s fake by the poor quality of blood, another reminder of the falseness within this film is the dog and winged bat attack, the dog biting the blind man’s neck was obviously a stuffed animal and the bat you could just about see its strings where it’s being dangled from the ceiling. But maybe you could argue that again Argento is reminding you its not real in a dull explicit way.

Fig 4: Disturbing Scene

The beginning and end start with the same incredible/effective music score by The Goblin’s, it grabs your attention, gives a little tingle of thrill and suspense and again increases the film’s power. “Suspiria is considered by many to be the best work ever by Dario Argento. The use of lighting, camera angles, close-up and music (performed by The Goblins with input from Argento himself) create a sinister and surreal shroud of dread and angst.” (Mike, 2016).


Bibliography

Hall, J. (2016) ‘Suspiria review: A bad dream made real’. At: http://www.slashfilm.com/suspiria-review/2/ (Accessed on 10 December 2016)

Mike. (2016) ‘Suspiria (1977) review’. At: http://horrorfreaknews.com/suspiria-1977-review (Accessed on 10 December 2016)


Illustration List

Figure 1: Movie Poster Horror posters from the 70’s and 80’s. (1982) [Poster] Pinterest. At: https://www.pinterest.com/wroy78/horror-posters-from-the-70s-and-80s/ (Accessed on 10 December 2016)

Figure 2: Colour Atmosphere. (2016) Features. Slashfilm. At: http://www.slashfilm.com/suspiria-review/2/ (Accessed on 10 December 2016)

Figure 3: Dream World. (1977). Pinterest. At: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/467037423827153266/ (Accessed on 10 December 2016)

Figure 4: Sara Voodoo. Suspiria (1977). (2013) [Screenshot] Created by Hernandez, D. 2013. At: http://cinemassacre.com/2015/10/05/suspiria-1977/ (Accessed on 10 December 2016)