Suspiria

Dir: Dario Argento

1977

*****

Latin for ‘Sighs’, Suspiria doesn’t sound particularly scary but in fact, it is one of the greatest horror films of all time. It is also the most infamous of all the giallo films, as well as Dario Argento’s most iconic movie. Co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi, it is partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis (Sighs from the Depths). The film is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as The Three Mothers, which also comprises Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007). Argento said the idea for the film came to him after a trip through several European cities, including Lyon, Prague and Turin. He became fascinated by the "Magic Triangle," a point where the countries of France, Germany, and Switzerland meet as this is where Rudolf Steiner, a controversial social reformer and occultist, founded an anthroposophic community. Commenting on witchcraft and the occult, Argento stated: "There's very little to joke about. It's something that exists.” The title and general concept of "The Three Mothers"came from De Quincey's essay, which was an uncredited inspiration for the film. There is a section in the work entitled "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow". The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears", "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs", and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness". Daria Nicolodi helped Argento write the screenplay for the film, which combined the occult themes that interested Argento with fairytales that were inspiring to Nicolodi, such as Bluebeard, Pinocchio, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Nicolodi also partially based her contributions to the screenplay on a personal story her grandmother had told her, in which her grandmother had gone to take a piano lesson at an unnamed academy where she believed she encountered black magic.The encounter terrified her grandmother, prompting her to flee. Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), an American ballet student, arrives in Munich to study at the Tanz Dance Academy in Freiburg. En route to the school, she sees another student, Patricia Hingle (Eva Axén), fleeing in terror. The person on the intercom refuses to let Suzy in the school; as she returns to town, Suzy sees a disoriented Patricia running wildly through the woods. Patricia hides at a friend's apartment, where she reveals she has discovered something terrifying hidden within the school. She locks herself in the bathroom, only for an unseen assailant to pull her out on the roof and stab her several times, before tying a noose around her neck and throwing her mangled body through the apartment building's stained glass skylight. While attempting to alert other tenants to the murder, Pat's friend is impaled and killed by falling debris. The next morning, Suzy returns to the school, where she meets an instructor, Miss Tanner (Alida Valli), and the headmistress, Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett in what would be her last ever performance). Miss Tanner introduces Suzy to some of the other students, including Olga (played by Barbara Magnolfi and dubbed by Carolyn De Fonseca), her roommate, and Sara (Stefania Casini). Suzy falls ill during one of her dance classes. Olga kicks Suzy out of her apartment and she is forced to stay at the school. The school's physician, Professor Verdegast (Renato Scarpa), decides that Suzy's hemorrhaging is to be treated with a regular glass of wine. Suzy learns her room is next to Sara's and they become friends. While the school is preparing to eat dinner one night, larvae begin falling from the ceiling. The students are forced to sleep in one of the dance halls, where Madame Blanc explains that rotten food in the attic is the source of the larvae. As the students fall asleep, a woman enters the dance hall and lies down behind a makeshift curtain, obscuring her identity. From the woman's distinctive labored breathing, Sara is able to identify her as the academy's director, who is supposedly away from the school for the next month. A few days later, the school's blind pianist, Daniel (Flavio Bucci), is fired by Miss Tanner after his seeing-eye dog bites Madame Blanc's nephew, Albert. That night, Daniel is stalked by an unseen force while walking through a plaza; suddenly, his dog attacks and kills him by ripping out his throat. Suzy remembers that Patricia had uttered the words secret iris as she was fleeing the school. Sara reveals she was the person on the intercom the night Suzy arrived, and that Patricia was acting strangely and had become paranoid. Suzy suddenly falls unconscious, and Sara is forced to flee when an unknown figure enters the room. The person pursues Sara through the school and into the attic, where she locks herself in a storage room. As the pursuer attempts to open the door, Sara escapes through a window into another room, where she becomes entangled in a pit of razor wire. The black-gloved person enters the room and slits her throat with a razor, killing her. The next day, Suzy assumes that Sara has run away. She seeks help from Sara's close friend, Frank Mandel (Udo Kier), a psychiatrist. Mandel reveals that the school was established by a Greek woman named Helena Markos, who locals believed was a witch. Markos perished in a fire that destroyed most of the school. One of Mandel's colleagues, Professor Milius, explains that a coven is unable to survive without its leader—a true witch and the source of its power. Suzy returns to the school and finds the rest of the students are attending the Bolshoi Ballet. She promptly disposes of her food and wine, which she suspects are drugged. Suzy follows the sound of footsteps to Madame Blanc's office, where she discovers a mural of irises painted on the wall. Turning one of the irises results in a secret door opening to a concealed part of the school. Suzy explores the hidden passage and overhears Madame Blanc and the school staff plotting her demise. Blanc's nephew, Albert, spots Suzy and alerts a servant to her presence. Suzy sees Sara's disfigured body pinned to a casket and hides in another room. Suzy realizes someone else is in the room sleeping; she deduces it is Helena Markos, who has been pretending to be the school's director the whole time. She wakes the witch, who torments her and summons Sara's body to murder Suzy. However, Suzy impales Markos through the neck with an athame, causing Sara's body to disappear. The school begins to crumble around Suzy, who watches as Madame Blanc, Miss Tanner, and the rest of Markos' coven perish without her. Suzy escapes into the night as the academy is destroyed in a fire. Suspiria has since become one of Argento's most successful feature films, receiving critical acclaim for its visual and stylistic flair, use of vibrant colors and its awesome core by the prog-rock band Goblin. The lead character of Suzy Banyon was actually based on Snow White but Initially, the characters in the film were going to be very young girls - around eight to ten years old - but this was altered when the film's producers were hesitant to make a film with all young actors considering the amount of blood and gore involved. The final sequence of the film was actually based on a dream Nicolodi had while she was staying in Los Angeles. American actress Jessica Harper was cast in the lead role of American ballet dancer Suzy Banyon, Argento was said to have chosen Her based on her performance in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise. Harper turned down a role in Woody Allen's in order to appear in the film. Argento requested Italian actress Stefania Casini for the supporting role of Sara, a request which she obliged, having been an admirer of his films. The film is full of memorable visuals, the building modeled on the Whale House in Freiburg is now synonymous with horror. Suspiria is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks, particularly the use of set-piece structures that allow the camera to linger on pronounced visual elements. Cinematographer Luciano Tovoli was hired by Argento to shoot the film, based on color film tests he had completed, which Argento felt matched his vision, in part inspired by 1937’s Snow White. The film was shot using anamorphic lenses. The production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting, emphasized by the use of imbibition Technicolor prints. It is probably thr reddest film ever made. The imbibition process, used for films such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, is much more vivid in its colour rendition than emulsion-based release prints, therefore enhancing the nightmarish qualities of the film Argento intended to evoke. It was one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor, having been shot on one of the last remaining Technicolor 3-strip cameras in Europe at the time. The result is stunning. It is the first film people think of when they hear the term giallo, it’s not my favourite of the genre or even my favourite of Argento’s films but it is his grandest work, pure opera and a bona fide horror masterpiece.