''Suspiria'' is a 2018
supernatural horror film
Supernatural horror film is a film genre that combines aspects of supernatural film and horror film. Supernatural occurrences in such films often include ghosts and demons, and many supernatural horror films have elements of religion. Common them ...
directed by
Luca Guadagnino
Luca Guadagnino (; born 10 August 1971) is an Italian film director and producer. His films are characterized by their emotional complexity, eroticism, and lavish visuals. Guadagnino has received numerous accolades, including a Silver Lion, alon ...
from a screenplay by
David Kajganich, inspired by
Dario Argento
Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror film, horror and giallo genres during the 1970s and 1980s has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the ...
's
1977 Italian film of the same name. It stars
Dakota Johnson as an American woman who enrolls at a prestigious dance academy in Berlin run by a
coven
A coven () is a group or gathering of Witchcraft, witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English lan ...
of witches.
Tilda Swinton co-stars in three roles, as the company's lead choreographer, as a male psychotherapist involved in the academy, and as the leader of the coven.
Mia Goth, Elena Fokina and
Chloë Grace Moretz appear in supporting roles as students, while
Angela Winkler,
Ingrid Caven
Ingrid Caven (born 3 August 1938) is a German film actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in several films directed by her husband, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including '' Love Is Colder Than Death'' (1969), '' Why Does Herr R. Run Am ...
,
Sylvie Testud,
Renée Soutendijk and Christine LeBoutte portray some of the academy's matrons.
Jessica Harper, star of the original film, has a
cameo appearance
A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...
.
A remake of ''Suspiria'' was first announced in 2008 after Guadagnino had acquired the rights from the original film's writers, Argento and
Daria Nicolodi. Guadagnino offered the film to
David Gordon Green, but that project was eventually canceled due to financing conflicts. In September 2015, Guadagnino confirmed his plans to direct, describing his version as an "homage" to the original rather than a straightforward remake. A new screenplay was drafted by Kajganich, who had written Guadagnino's ''
A Bigger Splash'' the year before. Kajganich set the film during the so-called "
German Autumn" of 1977 to explore themes of generational guilt in that country during the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
. The film's other themes include motherhood, evil and the dynamics of matriarchies.
Unlike the original film, which used exaggerated colors, Guadagnino conceived the visuals in ''Suspiria'' as "winterish" and bleak, absent of primary colors. The film incorporates stylized dance sequences choreographed by
Damien Jalet, which form part of its representation of
witchcraft
Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...
.
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
took place in late 2016 and early 2017 in
Varese
Varese ( , ; or ; ; ; archaic ) is a city and ''comune'' in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, north-west of Milan. The population of Varese in 2018 was 80,559.
It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or exurban part ...
, Italy, and in Berlin. The
musical score was composed by
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
singer
Thom Yorke
Thomas Edward Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician who is the vocalist and main songwriter of the rock band Radiohead. He plays guitar, bass, keyboards and other instruments, and is noted for his falsetto. ''Rolling Stone'' desc ...
, who took inspiration from
krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
. The film is dedicated to the memories of ''
Vogue Italia'' editor-in-chief
Franca Sozzani, film director
Jonathan Demme
Robert Jonathan Demme ( ; February 22, 1944 – April 26, 2017) was an American filmmaker, whose career directing, producing, and screenwriting spanned more than 30 years and 70 feature films, documentaries, and television productions. He was an ...
and Deborah Falzone.
''Suspiria'' premiered at the
75th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2018. It was given a
limited release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
by
Amazon Studios in Los Angeles and New York on October 26, 2018, where it grossed over $180,000 in its opening weekend, marking the highest screen-average box-office launch of the year. It was screened on October 31 in some U.S. cities before opening in
wide release
In the motion picture industry, a wide release (short for nationwide release) is a film playing at the same time at cinemas in most markets across a country. This is in contrast to the formerly common practice of a roadshow theatrical release in ...
on November 2, 2018. It was released in Italy on January 1, 2019, by Videa.
A
box-office bomb
A box-office bomb is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the combined production budget, marketing, and distribution costs exceed the revenue after release has te ...
, critical response was polarized; some praised it for its visual elements and acting, while others criticized its historical-political setting as unnecessary or arbitrary in relation to its other themes.
Plot
During the
German Autumn of 1977, Susie Bannion, an American from a
Mennonite
Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...
family in
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
, is admitted at the Markos Dance Academy in
West Berlin
West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...
. The academy is reeling from the disappearance of a student, Patricia Hingle, who vanished after telling her psychotherapist, Josef Klemperer, that the academy is controlled by a
coven
A coven () is a group or gathering of Witchcraft, witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English lan ...
. Journals left by Patricia in Klemperer's office detail
The Three Mothers, a trio of witches who predate
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
: ''
Mater Suspiriorum'', ''
Mater Tenebrarum'', and ''
Mater Lachrymarum''. Klemperer, initially dismissive of Patricia's claims, becomes suspicious of the academy after her disappearance.
During rehearsal, a
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
student, Olga, becomes indignant towards Madame Blanc and storms out of the studio. Olga attempts to escape with her belongings but finds herself trapped alone in a room lined with mirrors. Blanc, meanwhile, resumes the rehearsal, during which Susie performs an aggressive dance; her movements begin physically afflicting Olga, ravaging her body and damaging her organs and bones. Several of the academy's matrons drag Olga's mangled body away with large hooks. Later, the matrons hold an informal election for who is to serve as the coven's new leader. The vote is between Madame Blanc and Mother Markos, an aged and grossly disfigured witch who has long controlled the coven, and for whom the academy is named; Markos wins the popular vote. Afterwards, Miss Griffith, the most sheepish of the matrons, kills herself.
Susie befriends her classmate Sara. While investigating the disappearances of Olga and Patricia, the two realize the academy has washed all traces of them. Susie quickly climbs the ranks as Blanc's protégée, then is appointed the lead of the academy's upcoming piece, ''
Volk
The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to :wikt:people, people,
both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of ''People, a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the E ...
''. Meanwhile, Sara grows suspicious of the matrons after a meeting with Klemperer and uncovers clandestine hallways in the building where she discovers
esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...
relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...
s. Klemperer attends the performance. Immediately prior, Sara explores a passageway leading into the catacombs where she finds a heavily withering Patricia. Sara runs away but the matrons manifest holes in the floor, causing her to fall and fracture her leg. Sara emerges midway through the performance, dancing her part in a hypnotic trance, but collapses in pain before the dance ends. Blanc subsequently chastises Susie for intervening in the matrons' efforts to manipulate Sara's body.
The next day, Susie attends a celebratory dinner with the matrons. Meanwhile, Klemperer encounters Anke, his presumed-deceased wife, at his
dacha
A dacha (Belarusian, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of former Soviet Union, post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ...
in
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
. She tells him she faked her death after fleeing the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
and started a new life in England. They walk together, passing through a
security checkpoint into West Berlin without being noticed. Klemperer realizes the two have arrived at the Markos Academy; before his eyes, he realizes Anke is, in fact, Miss Huller, one of the matrons, and that he has been lured there to bear witness to an impending
witches' sabbath.
After the dinner, Susie returns to the academy and is led to a chamber where Blanc and the other matrons await with Mother Markos, for whom Susie is to be a new vessel, and an incapacitated Klemperer. Susie renounces her own mother, who simultaneously succumbs on her deathbed in Ohio. The matrons disembowel Sara to begin the sabbath, but Blanc senses a discrepancy. Hesitant to proceed, she is nearly decapitated by Markos. As Blanc bleeds profusely, Susie reveals that she, not Markos, is Mother Suspiriorum; she is there to claim the academy and eradicate Markos. Susie summons
Death
Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
, killing Markos and her most faithful matrons, sparing only those devoted to Blanc. Patricia, Olga, and Sara, each physically ravaged, plead to die, which Susie grants them.
The following day, the academy resumes operations as usual. Miss Vendegast discovers Blanc on the verge of death, and an announcement is made to the students that Blanc has left the academy. Meanwhile, Klemperer, who was spared and now confined to his bed, is met by Susie at his home. She apologizes for her coven's actions and recounts to him the fate of Anke, who died at the
Theresienstadt concentration camp. Upon her touching him, he suffers a violent
seizure
A seizure is a sudden, brief disruption of brain activity caused by abnormal, excessive, or synchronous neuronal firing. Depending on the regions of the brain involved, seizures can lead to changes in movement, sensation, behavior, awareness, o ...
that erases his memories before she leaves. In the present day, a carving of Klemperer and Anke's initials on the wall of their dacha goes unnoticed by its current occupants. In a post-credits scene, Susie stares approvingly at something outside the academy.
Cast
Analysis and themes
Motherhood
The theme of motherhood is explored frequently in the film, both within the coven and in Susie's early life and relationship to her own mother.
[ Michael Leader of '' Sight & Sound'' considers the film "an extended exercise in metafictional annotation that insists on dragging the original's darkest metaphors into the light."]
Michael O'Sullivan of ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' links the film's theme of motherhood (characterized alongside its "discontents" as being "chewed on like a vulture tearing at a carrion") with ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnostate/ethnocratic) approach to variou ...
, though he states that "neither subtext goes much of anywhere". Julie Bloom echoed similar sentiments in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', writing that while the film "revels in gore and gruesome displays of horror... it also delves into the dynamics of a wholly female community, touching on issues of power, manipulation, motherhood and the horrible things some women can do to other women and themselves."[
Matt Goldberg of '' Collider'' interprets a perfidious form of motherhood as a core theme of the film, as he notes the matrons merely pretend "to be motherly towards the students, utthey're actually just using them for their power."] Madame Blanc's near-decapitation at the hands of Mother Markos when she is resistant to beginning the sabbath demonstrates that Blanc and Markos "do not share the same values", and that Blanc has formed a genuine kinship with Susie.[ Hannah Ewens of '']Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...
'' notes: "With coven power transferred to Susie, it's impossible to say where her talent ends and the influence of the mothers begins. Mothers aren't supposed to have favorites, but deep down they often do—and Madame Blanc's is Susie from the moment of her audition."
Abuse of power and national guilt
For the majority of the film, Susie appears to be an otherwise normal woman who finds her natural talents rewarded and prized by the coven.[ As the film progresses into its final act, however, it is revealed that Susie is in fact Mother Suspiriorum, one of the Three Mothers whom the coven exalts.][ Film Crit Hulk, a pseudonymous writer for '']The New York Observer
''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper established in 1987. In 2016, it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainment ...
'', interprets Susie's character arc as the discovery of her shadow self: "Initially she seems just a fresh-faced girl from Ohio, eager to make strides into this esteemed dance company. But her shadow self is soon awoken, which we are meant to fear. Susie unleashes her libido as the rapturous demon below claws at the floor. She turns deeply sexual, almost becoming carnal as she writhes to the ground." Similarly to Goldberg, they interpret Susie's unveiling of herself as Mother Suspiriorium to be messianic in nature, as she eradicates the corrupted Mother Markos and the loyal followers who idolize her.[ Goldberg reads Susie's destruction of Markos and her followers as retribution for their abuse of power:
While Susie/Mother Suspiriorum shows no mercy for Markos and her followers, Goldberg asserts that she is capable of compassion, citing the fact that she grants the physically devastated Sara, Olga, and Patricia "the sweet release of a gentle death rather than obliterating them."][ Goldberg extends this interpretation to Susie/Mother Suspiriorum's visit to Klemperer in the epilogue, during which she relates his lost wife's death in a concentration camp, information he had not previously known.][ Goldberg reads the sequence as an emphasis that "women bonding together have the power to remove the fear of death, and that while the worldespecially the powerfulneed 'guilt' and 'shame,' Klemperer should not feel those things because he has not abused his power. He's the "witness" and from the perspective of witnessing an authoritarian rise to powerin his case, ]Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
he is responsible for watching and doing nothing. However, it's people in power who need guilt and shame."[
Some critics have alternately interpreted the representation of the coven's power as inspiring fear of women's autonomy and linking it solely with violence.] Sonia Rao of ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' notes that while "Guadagnino grants these women power", their power "knows no bounds. Madam Blanc... can turn Susie's dreams into bloodcurdling nightmares. She and the other matrons can inflict injuries on dancers whenever and wherever they want. The witches frequently inflict or inspire violencetheir actions, after all, are what make this a horror movie. But some critics say this makes it seem like a woman with a great amount of power is someone who should be feared."[ The '']Chicago Reader
The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. The ''Reader'' has been ...
''s Andrea Thompson echoes this sentiment, writing that the film adopts a vision where "when women are united, it is always to achieve an evil outcome." Andrew Whalen of ''Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' conversely suggests that the film "decimat stypical narrative conventions of good and bad... Evil is disturbingly natural in ''Suspiria'', where sometimes only further violence can make room for good to exist at all." Whalen characterizes the coven as "a working alternative to the patriarchy falling apart outside hedoors—financially autonomous, beyond the reach of the police... and deeply, powerfully collectivist, both materially and spiritually."[
The narrative of the coven and Susie/Mother Suspiriorum's infiltration of it is underpinned by numerous historical incidents, including the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, bombings, and numerous kidnappings perpetrated by the Red Army Faction, a ]Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
group whose peak activity occurred in the autumn of 1977 in West Germany. These events occurred in the wake of '' Vergangenheitsbewältigung'', a period referring to Germany's national reflection on their culpability in World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and the Holocaust, which "echoes constantly throughout" the film. While Goldberg[ has pointed out correlations between the coven's inner workings and the national events occurring outside of it, others, such as Simon Abrams of '']The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'', view them as "surface-level parallels between historic signifiers" that "have the odd effect of subordinating those female-centered themes to a blandly familiar grab bag of sensationalistic headlines."[ Abrams concludes that the film offers "an underdeveloped, pseudo-]Jungian
Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their s ...
understanding of how historical events kinda/sorta overshadow their protagonists' lives."
Production
Development
A remake of '' Suspiria'' (1977) was announced in 2008 by director David Gordon Green, who had co-written a script with his sound designer. In 2007, Luca Guadagnino
Luca Guadagnino (; born 10 August 1971) is an Italian film director and producer. His films are characterized by their emotional complexity, eroticism, and lavish visuals. Guadagnino has received numerous accolades, including a Silver Lion, alon ...
had convinced the original film's creators Dario Argento
Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror film, horror and giallo genres during the 1970s and 1980s has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the ...
and Daria Nicolodi to allow him to option a remake of the film. Guadagnino subsequently offered the project to Green,[ who cast Isabelle Huppert, Janet McTeer, and Isabelle Fuhrman.] Green described his screenplay as "operatic",[ adding, "I love Argento's film and we wrote a very faithful, extremely elegant opera ... I don't mean musical opera, but it would be incredibly heightened music, and heightened and very operatic and elegant sets."][ According to Green, financing conflicts resulted in the project being scrapped.][
In September 2015, at the 72nd Venice Film Festival, Guadagnino announced plans to direct a "remake" of ''Suspiria'' with the four main actors of his film '' A Bigger Splash'', which had premiered at the festival. Guadagnino revealed that his version was to be set in Berlin circa 1977, and would have as its main theme "the uncompromising force of motherhood". Guadagnino has since said explicitly that the film is not a ]remake
A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...
, but is instead a "homage" to the "powerful emotion" he felt when he first watched the original film:I was so terrified, but as always with something that terrifies you, I was completely pulled in. I think the process of how that movie influenced my psyche probably has yet to stop, which is something that happens often when you bump into a serious work of art like ''Suspiria''. I think the movie I made, in a way, epresentssome of the layers of yupbringing, watching the movie for the first time and thinking of it and being obsessed by it.
Guadagnino said in 2018 that he felt ''Suspiria'' was his most personal film to date. The film was a co-production between the United States and Italy.
Screenplay
The screenplay was written by American writer David Kajganich, who had previously written Guadagnino's ''A Bigger Splash''. Though Kajganich admitted to not being a fan of the original film, he agreed to write a screenplay for Guadagnino.[ On writing the film, Kajganich stated:
Kajganich chose to set the film in Berlin in 1977the year the original film was releasedduring the series of terrorist events known as the " German Autumn".] The film begins shortly after the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, in order to hint at "larger thematic concerns", specifically the response of the youth of the era to the denial by their parents' and grandparents' generations of German culpability in World War II.[ ] Kajganich used the political tumult of the time as a means of contextualizing the central plot surrounding the Markos dance academy, "where an American is getting her education in a way in how a modern kind of fascism might look." For inspiration, Kajganich studied women's literature of the period, as well as the films of German contemporary filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, dramatist and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema moveme ...
, and "listened to a lot of erman singerNico
Christa Päffgen (; 16 October 1938 – 18 July 1988), known by her stage name Nico, was a German singer, songwriter, actress, and model.
Nico had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's '' La Dolce Vita'' (1960) and Andy Warhol's ...
".[
Guadagnino was mostly interested in the witchcraft and solidarity among women aspects of Kajganich's script, themes which he said have been "perverted by the official history and the official religions as making a bargain with the devil. The witchcraft that I'm interested in also has a lot to do with what, psychoanalytically, is called the concept of the terrible mother, which you can see also in some religions, particularly in the ]Kali
Kali (; , ), also called Kalika, is a major goddess in Hinduism, primarily associated with time, death and destruction. Kali is also connected with transcendental knowledge and is the first of the ten Mahavidyas, a group of goddesses who p ...
goddess."[ Retaining the dance academy locale, Kajganich proposed that the witches would transmit their spells via movement: "It makes total sense why a coven would hide in a dance company, because they could wield their influence in public ways, without the public realizing."][ Kajganich pitched this concept to Guadagnino early on, and shaped the screenplay using dance as a narrative through-line.][ Guadagnino was also enthusiastic in response to Kajganich's setting of the film, remarking: "Dario's movie was a sort of self-contained box of fleshy delicacies, which was not in relationship with the moment it was made. It was too much of an opportunity for me and David to actually say, 'It's 1977 – deal with it, let's make it the center of the story.'"]
Casting
On November 23, 2015, Guadagnino confirmed that Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson had been cast in the film and that shooting was scheduled to begin in August 2016, with release set for 2017. Johnson was asked to play the part of Susie Bannion while filming Guadagnino's ''A Bigger Splash''. After watching the original film, Johnson agreed to commit to the project.[ "I was obviously really invested—really invested in Luca as a person, collaborator, artist", Johnson said. "You just want to go on any adventure with him."][
Swinton, a friend and frequent collaborator of Guadagnino who had also co-starred in ''A Bigger Splash'', was cast in three roles: Madame Blanc, the lead choreographer of the academy; Helena Markos, its decrepit matron; and Dr. Josef Klemperer, a psychologist who becomes embroiled in the coven.][ In the part of Klemperer, Swinton is credited as " Lutz Ebersdorf".][ Swinton stated that she modeled her portrayal of Madame Blanc after ]Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer, teacher and choreographer, whose style, the Graham technique, reshaped the dance world and is still taught in academies worldwide.
Graham danced and taught for over s ...
and Pina Bausch, who she felt embodied "the shape Madame Blanc cuts — her silhouette, her barefoot rootedness, the precise choreography of her relationship with cigarette after cigarette."[
In October 2016, Chloë Grace Moretz was cast as Patricia Hingle, a student who goes missing from the academy, while Mia Goth was cast as Sara, another one of the academy's dancers.] Moretz commented on her participation in the film: "It's unlike any other directing process I have ever been a part of... Luca is Luca and there's kind of no mistaking it for anything else. He'll let you do the craziest stuff on screen and won't bat an eye, he'll tell you to go farther."
Also cast were European actresses Sylvie Testud, Angela Winkler, Fabrizia Sacchi, and Renée Soutendijk, each as matrons of the academy. Fashion models Małgosia Bela and Alek Wek appear in their feature film debuts as Susie's mother and another of the academy matrons, respectively. Jessica Harper, who played Suzy Bannion in the original film, also joined the cast as Anke Meier, the wife of Klemperer who disappeared during the Nazi invasion.[ Harper was asked to appear in the cameo by Guadaganino, but under the provision that she would be able to perform in German.][ To prepare, she took German classes at a Berlitz school.][
]
Lutz Ebersdorf
The role of Dr. Josef Klemperer is portrayed by Swinton, although it is credited as played by an actor named Lutz Ebersdorf in the film and its promotional material, and the filmmakers maintained that Ebersdorf was a real psychoanalyst until a month after the film's premiere.
In March 2017, photographs of a seemingly old man spotted on the film's set were published online, identifying the man as Swinton in heavy prosthetic makeup. In February 2018, Guadagnino called the claim "complete fake news", saying that the man was not Swinton but in fact a German actor named Lutz Ebersdorf in his screen debut, who plays a psychoanalyst named Josef Klemperer in the film and is a psychoanalyst himself. IndieWire questioned the veracity of Guadagnino's statement because of Ebersdorf's suspicious IMDb
IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...
profile and otherwise lack of online presence.[ The film's casting director and executive producer Stella Savino responded to IndieWire, saying, "the character of Dr. Klemperer has been played by Professor Lutz Ebersdorf, a psychoanalyst and not at all a professional actor."] During a press conference following the film's September 1, 2018 premiere at Venice, Swinton read a letter purportedly written from Ebersdorf in lieu of his presence, which read: "I am a private individual who prefers to remain private ... Though I strongly suspect ''Suspiria'' will be the only film I ever appear in, I like the work, and I do not mind getting up very early."
Writing for '' Vanity Fair'', Joanna Robinson reported that when the film screened at Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas, focused on fantasy, horror, sci-fi, action and cult films, the largest genre festival in the United States. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse.
Lisa Dreyer ...
in Austin, Texas, on September 23, 2018, the audience was certain that the role of Klemperer was played by Swinton. Robinson speculated that the filmmakers wrote the role and cast Swinton in order for the film to have both an outsider's perspective and a narrative of female power. By September 2018, IMDb had deleted Ebersdorf's profile and credited Swinton as playing Klemperer under the alias "Lutz Ebersdorf".
In October 2018, Swinton told ''The New York Times'' that Dr. Klemperer was played by Lutz Ebersdorf and Ebersdorf was played by her.[ When asked why she played Ebersdorf, she said, "for the sheer sake of fun above all... The intention was never to fool anybody. The genius of akeup artist Mark Coulier notwithstanding, it was always our design that there would be something unresolved about the identity of the performance of Klemperer."][ Swinton asked the makeup department to make a prosthetic penis, which she wore during filming.][ Swinton wrote Ebersdorf's IMDb biography herself.] Guadagnino stated in a subsequent interview in ''Vulture
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to Nort ...
'' that several of the actors in the film believed Ebersdorf to be a real person, specifically Ingrid Caven, who was unaware it was Swinton in disguise until after filming wrapped.
Filming
Locations and design
While some filming took place at the Palazzo Estense in December 2016, the central shooting location was the Grand Hotel Campo Dei Fiori in Varese, Italy, which served as the Markos Dance Academy. In the film, the hotel appears to be positioned in West Berlin along the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...
, but the actual location of the building is on a remote mountaintop overlooking Varese.[
Inbal Weinberg, the film's production designer, commented: "When we arrived in Italy, we went to scout for alternative places, because this was logistically going to be almost a nightmare... the hotel had so much going for it."][ Weinberg dressed the Grand Hotel Campo dei Fiori's interiors with dressings and furniture from various decades to give it an "intentionally out-of-time feeling."] German Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...
geometric designs were used for certain interiors, such as the carpets of Madame Blanc's apartment, while Modernist architecture served as a constant reference point.[ The Frankfurt kitchen, a mass-produced fitted kitchen introduced in 1926, was the basis for the matrons' kitchen design, as well as the Sonneveld House in ]Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
.[ In designing the dancers' dormitories, Weinberg dressed them with posters from contemporaneous underground bands, and "plasticky" furnishings from the 1970s.][ Costume designer Giulia Piersanti selected vintage clothing from the period that was "colorful, but not necessarily bright."] Many of the costumes in the film were purchased from a used clothing warehouse in Prato
Prato ( ; ) is a city and municipality (''comune'') in Tuscany, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Prato. The city lies in the northeast of Tuscany, at an elevation of , at the foot of Monte Retaia (the last peak in the Calvana ch ...
, Italy.[
For the film's climactic sabbath scene, the production used a ]loggia
In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...
in the hotel, filling in its arches which were then meticulously covered with braided hair.[ "It was Luca's idea to use hair", said Weinberg. "We conceptually decided that the texture of the wall is the hair of victims."][ The process of weaving the artificial hair took the design crew weeks to complete.][
]
Principal photography
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
began at the Grand Hotel Campo dei Fiori in Varese on October 31, 2016, with a production budget of $20 million.[ The shoot lasted approximately two months, concluding in December 2016,][ while the remainder of principal photography was finished in early 2017, concluding in Berlin on March 10, 2017. Approximately two weeks were spent in Berlin, during which filming of the street and ]U-Bahn
Rapid transit in Germany consists of four systems and 14 systems. The , commonly understood to stand for ('underground railway'), are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while the or ('city rapid railway') are c ...
sequences took place, as well as those occurring at the police station, which was shot in an abandoned office building in Mitte
Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.
It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuz ...
.[ The scenes of Klemperer at his dacha were shot in suburban Berlin.][
The filming conditions at the Grand Hotel Campo dei Fiori were described as uncomfortable by the cast and crew,][ as the film was shot in the winter months and the hotel was inefficiently heated with gasoline space heaters.] The hotel, which had been abandoned for several decades, had been adorned with cellular towers on the rooftop;[ Guadagnino recalled a "constant signal coming from the antennas that made all of us very weak and tired", while Johnson stated "there was electricity pulsating through the building, and everyone was shocking each other."][ She retrospectively commented that the filming process "fucked me up so much that I had to go to therapy".] She later expanded on this statement, saying that the filming process "was not traumatic" and instead "the most fun and the most exhilarating and the most joyful that it could be... utwhen you're working sometimes with dark subject matter, it can stay with you and then to talk to somebody really nice about it afterwards is a really nice way to move on from the project." Harper, who worked on the film for only several days but was present during portions of the shoot, likened the locale to a "haunted house... It was cold and dark and scary... which was kind of appropriate, but not ideal shooting circumstances." The production's first assistant director broke his leg early into the shoot after falling on one of the sets.[
]
Cinematography
Like its predecessor, ''Suspiria'' was shot on 35mm film stock. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who had previously worked on Guadagnino's '' Call Me by Your Name'' (2017), shot the film exclusively on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, without correction filters. To achieve a 1970s-style effect, the film uses slow motion
Slow motion (commonly abbreviated as slow-mo or slo-mo) is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger in the early 20th century. This can be accomplished through the use ...
and numerous camera zooms typical of the period,[ including recurrent use of snap zooms.
In contrast to the original, Guadagnino's film uses primary colors sparingly. He described the film's look as "winter-ish, evil, and really dark." According to Guadagnino, the decision not to use primary colors was made in accordance with the film's bleak setting amidst Germany on "the verge of a civil war".][ Rather than using lavish color like Argento did in his original film, Guadagnino stated he and Mukdeeprom "went for a different take. Dario Argento and let's face it, Luciano Tovoli, his wonderful D.P., they decided to go for an extremely expressionistic way of decoding horror, which started from the work of ]Mario Bava
Mario Bava (; 31 July 1914 – 27 April 1980) was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish ...
. The way in which they made those colors — not just simple gels in front of lights, they were using velvet and they were really sculpting the light — hat
A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...
has influenced filmmakers for so long. I think everything that could have been said through that style has been said."[
In opting for a more muted color palette, the filmmakers used cinematographer Michael Ballhaus's work in the films of Rainer Fassbinder as reference points, as well as the work of modernist artist Balthus, which Guadagnino felt "created such uncanny eeriness and fear".][ The compositions, costumes, and set design were all crafted with this in mind, and prominently feature browns, blacks, blues, and greens.][
]
Special effects
Makeup artist Mark Coulier served as the film's makeup effects coordinator. The bulk of the special effects featured in the film were achieved via practical methods.[ According to Coulier, the death sequence of Olga, and the final sabbath scene were the most demanding in regard to special effects.][ For the former, a prosthetic arm, leg, broken ribs, and a protruding dental cast were created for actress Elena Fokina (Olga), allowing her to appear as though the bones in her limbs, abdomen, and jaw were being crushed and broken.] Fokina, a professional dancer and contortionist, achieved the majority of the contortions herself, while her actual arm and leg were removed from the footage in post-production via digital processing
Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of discrete symbols, each of which can take on one of only a finite number of values from some alphabet, such as letters or digits. An example ...
.[ In conceiving Olga's broken arm, Coulier was inspired by a stunt performed by Ronny Cox in '']Deliverance
''Deliverance'' is a 1972 American thriller film directed and produced by John Boorman from a screenplay by James Dickey, who adapted it from his own Deliverance (novel), 1970 novel. It follows four businessmen from Atlanta who venture into th ...
'' (1972), in which he dislocated his own shoulder in the film.[
The witches' sabbath that serves as the climax of the film was technically complicated due to Swinton's portrayal of three roles, each of which required their own unique and extensive makeup effects, as well as full-body prosthetics.][ Additional prosthetics were created to achieve the disfigured appearance of Patricia, as well as the disembowelment of Sara.][ "We had so many other makeup effects and full-body prosthetics going on", Coulier recalled. "We had Chloë Moretz in her dead-Patricia makeup, we had the intestines being pulled out, we had all sorts of stuff. It was a big challenge, and we had about 20 people on set, all applying makeups for that long sequence."][ The wound which Susie tears open on her chest in the climax was also achieved with prosthetics, though it was digitally enhanced in post-production.][
]
Choreography
Unlike the original film, which, though set at a ballet academy, featured very little on-screen dancing, Guadagnino's ''Suspiria'' uses dance as a key plot device. Congruous to the period in which it is set, contemporary dance
Contemporary dance is a genre of Concert dance, dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly stron ...
was a central influence on the dance style depicted in the film.[ Kajganich commented that German expressionist dancers Mary Wigman and Pina Bausch were specific influences on his conceptualization of the dance routines.][ While writing the screenplay, Kajganich shadowed choreographer and dancer Sasha Waltz to gain further insight into the technicalities of the profession.][ The work of Isadora Duncan was also an influence.][
Damien Jalet choreographed the elaborate dance sequences in the film.][ Guadagnino hired him after seeing a live performance of Jalet's ''Les Médusées'' ( "''The Bewitched''"), at the ]Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
.[ Incidentally, Jalet had drawn inspiration from Argento's ''Suspiria'' when choreographing ''Les Médusées''.][ Jalet subsequently used ''Les Médusées'' as the basis for the film's six-minute climactic dance sequence called "Volk".][ For the last sabbath scene, Jalet said: "We wanted to go from something pretty technical, mathematical, with a certain sense of elegance to something where the body becomes wilder and more and more distorted", Jalet commented. "The scene described something very chaotic, but I felt we needed to create something still very ritualized."] Indonesian dance also served as a reference point for the sequence,[ which features movements that are "staccato, with harsh stops and starts, and an arm styling that is both intimate—in moments when the dancers hold on to each other—and harshly linear."][
Aside from Johnson and Goth, all of the actresses in the on-screen dance scenes were professional dancers.][ Johnson trained extensively in the year leading up to the shoot to achieve the body type and technique of a dancer,] spending two hours each day training at a dance studio in Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
while filming '' Fifty Shades Freed'' (2018). She trained in various forms of dance ranging from ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
to contemporary dance, as her character is that of a formally untrained, yet broadly proficient, dancer. Johnson also studied the work of Wigman, and listened to various musical acts of the 1970s, such as The Carpenters
The Carpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of siblings Karen Carpenter, Karen (1950–1983) and Richard Carpenter (musician), Richard Carpenter (born 1946). They produced a distinctive soft musical style, combining ...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American Rock music, rock band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1965. One of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the San Francisco Bay Area, ...
, and Nina Simone
Nina Simone ( ; born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, pianist, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and po ...
, artists she felt would have informed her character's instinctive movements. In the early autumn of 2016, roughly two months before the shoot began, both Johnson and Goth began rehearsing the film's choreography on location in Varese for six to eight hours per day.
Music
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
singer Thom Yorke
Thomas Edward Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician who is the vocalist and main songwriter of the rock band Radiohead. He plays guitar, bass, keyboards and other instruments, and is noted for his falsetto. ''Rolling Stone'' desc ...
composed the score, his first feature film soundtrack. It features the London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir and Yorke's son Noah on drums. He initially refused the offer, but accepted after months of requests from Guadagnino. Much of the score was completed prior to the film shoot, giving Guadagnino the opportunity to play it on set during filming.[
Yorke cited inspiration from the 1982 ''Blade Runner'' soundtrack, ]musique concrète
Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...
artists such as Pierre Henry
Henry at his home (January 2008)
Pierre Georges Albert François Henry (; 9 December 1927 – 5 July 2017) was a French composer known for his significant contributions to musique concrète.
Biography
Henry was born in Paris, France, and bega ...
, modern electronic artists such as James Holden, and music from the film's 1977 Berlin setting, such as krautrock
Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
. He said: "There's a way of repeating in music that can hypnotise. I kept thinking to myself that it's a form of making spells. So when I was working in my studio I was making spells. I know it sounds really stupid, but that's how I was thinking about it." The soundtrack was released on October 26, 2018 by XL Recordings.
Release
In promotion for the film, a scene was screened during a luncheon at the 2018 CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
, in April 2018. It was reported that the footage was so intense it "traumatized" those present. The scene presented was that in which Olga is contorted and mangled via movements made during Susie's improvisational dance. Peter Sciretta of ''/Film
''/Film'', also spelled ''SlashFilm'', is a blog that covers movie news, reviews, interviews, and trailers. It was founded by Peter Sciretta in August 2005. The site's reviews appear on Rotten Tomatoes, and as of 2024, two of its leading film cr ...
'' described the scene as "very gruesome and hard to watch. This film will make most people feel uneasy." In May 2018, Videa acquired Italian distribution rights to the film.
''Suspiria'' held its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2018. It opened in a limited release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and New York on October 26, 2018.[ Guadagnino held an exclusive Q&A session during the film's opening weekend in Los Angeles.][ Limited screenings began on ]Halloween
Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...
night in various U.S. cities, including Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
, Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
, Portland, San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, Springfield, and Tempe. The U.S. release expanded to a total of 311 screens on November 2, 2018. It was released in the United Kingdom by Mubi
Mubi (; stylized as MUBI; the Auteurs before 2010) is a global streaming platform, production company and film distributor. MUBI produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusively available ...
on November 16, 2018. It was released in Italy on January 1, 2019.
Home media
''Suspiria'' was released in the United States on digital platforms on January 15, 2019, and on Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on January 29, through Lionsgate Lions Gate, Lion Gate or similar terms may refer to:
Gates
*Lion Gate at Mycenae in Greece
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the ancient Hittite city of Hattusa, now in Turkey
*Lion Gate, one of the entrances to the gardens of Hampton Court Pala ...
. The digital and Blu-ray releases include three behind-the-scenes featurettes. , the film has made $1.1 million in Blu-ray sales.
Reception
Box office
''Suspiria'' grossed a total of $179,806 during its opening weekend playing at the ArcLight Hollywood and Regal Union Square in Los Angeles and New York, respectively. This marked an average of $89,903 per screen, the highest screen-average box office launch of the year. Upon its expansion the following week, the film grossed $964,722 between November 2 and November 4, ranking number 19 at the U.S. box office. The film had closed on December 20 after it grossed $5,169,833 internationally, and $2,483,472 in the United States, making for a worldwide gross of $7,653,305. In 2020, Guadagnino said ''Suspiria'' had "made absolutely nothing. It was a disaster at the box office."
Critical response
The critical responses to ''Suspiria'' were strongly polarized upon its release. Peter Travers
Peter Joseph Travers (born June 27, 1943) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film i ...
of ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' stressed that "polarizing" served as "too tame a word" to describe the reactions to the film.[ On review aggregator ]Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has an approval rating of 65% based on 335 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "''Suspiria'' attacks heady themes with garish vigor, offering a viewing experience that's daringly confrontationaland definitely not for everyone." On Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, the film has an average weighted score of 64 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Commenting on the horror elements of the film, Andrew Whalen of ''Newsweek'' deemed it "a powerful and dread-inducing experience even before it reveals itself to be not just an arthouse exploration of a horror aesthetic." He also compared the body horror in the film to that of the works of David Cronenberg. Like Whalen, Kristen Kim of ''The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'' observed similar elements, and wrote that it took "the body horror of the original to an unsightly new level. If the blood runs pretty in the old ''Suspiria'', it's urine here that trickles down the legs of a painfully contorted ballerina." Writing in ''Variety'', Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...
compared certain visual elements of the film to ''The Exorcist
''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on The Exorcist (novel), his 1971 novel. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller (play ...
'' (1973) and summarized it as a "gory but imperiously lofty matriarchal horror film", though he noted that the film would have benefited from more shocks. ''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
''s Ty Burr described the film's finale as "Lovecraftian
Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is na ...
" but concluded that what it "mostly leaves behind is an acrid taste of having experienced something stylish but unfulfilling."
The ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''s Justin Chang felt that the reimagining of witchcraft is "boldly absurd" and concluded: "By the time the phantasmagorical finale arrives, you are flooded with blood and viscera, yes, but also something even more unsettling — a sudden onrush of feeling, a deep, overpowering melancholy. It's the most startling of the movie's transfigurations, and it returns us to the primordial theme of motherhood." Anthony Lane of ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' wrote a favorable review of the film, concluding: "The first time I saw Guadagnino's ''Suspiria'', I came out pretty much covered in gore, and confounded by the surfeit of stories. Can a splash be so big that it drowns the senses? How does such a film cohere? The second time around, I followed the flow, and found that what it led to was not terror, or disgust, but an unexpected sadness." David Ehrlich, who gave the film an A−, commented in ''IndieWire'' that "''Suspiria'' is a film of rare and unfettered madness, and it leaves behind a scalding message that's written in pain and blood: The future will be a nightmare if we can't take responsibility for the past." ''Slant Magazine
''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...
''s Greg Cwik praised the cinematography, but expressed disappointment for what he felt was a lack of cohesion: "''Suspiria'' is a largely befuddling accumulation of shots and sounds that never coalesce."
The film's length and pacing were noted by several critics who had varying opinions: David Rooney of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' criticized the film for being "unnecessarily drawn out" with "too many discursive shifts to build much tension", while Peter Bradshaw
Peter Nicholas Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire'' magazine.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educat ...
of ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' described it as "more an MA thesis than a remake... determinedly upscale and uppermiddlebrow, with indigestible new layers of historical meaning added." Manohla Dargis of ''The New York Times'' criticised the pacing and runtime, writing: "As the first hour of ''Suspiria'' grinds into the second and beyond (the movie runs 152 minutes), it grows ever more distended and yet more hollow. Unlike Argento, who seemed content to deliver a nastily updated fairy tale in 90 or so minutes, Guadagnino continues casting about for meaning, which perhaps explains why he keeps adding more stuff, more mayhem, more dances." ''Telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
'' critic Robbie Collin, however, praised the film for being a "slow burner", awarding it five out of five and stating that he considered it a better film than the original. Chris Klimek of NPR alternately deemed the film "a confounding and often punishing experience... simply keeping up with the plot, despite its pokey pace, is ultimately exhausting." William Bibbiani of ''IGN
''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
'' echoed this sentiment, summarizing the film as "an interesting intellectual exercise, too ambitious to be ignored yet too overbearing to be enjoyed." Travers conceded that "Guadagnino's reach far exceeds his grasp", but concluded: "to watch him excavate evil to find a sorrowful truth is something you won't want to miss."[
Numerous critics commented on the themes of German history and ]the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
.[ Brian Truitt of '']USA Today
''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...
'' wrote that the subtext and subplots were "bound to alienate some", but that "those with a penchant for the new wave of psychological horror and a healthy respect for B-movie camp will love this thing to the crazy last dance", while Stephanie Zacharek of ''Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' criticised the political backdrop as "an extra layer of needless complication." This sentiment was reiterated by Richard Brody, writing for ''The New Yorker'', who felt that the filmmakers "shoehorn the Holocaust into the film with a conspicuously effortful shove... The movie has nothing to say about women's history, feminist politics, civil violence, the Holocaust, the Cold War, or German culture. Instead, Guadagnino thrusts some thusly labelled trinkets at viewers and suggests that they try to assemble them. The result is sordid, flimsy Holocaust kitsch
''Kitsch'' ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as Naivety, naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal Taste (sociology), taste.
The modern avant-garde traditionally opposed kitsch ...
, fanatical chic, with all the actual political substance of a designer Che T-shirt."
Commenting on the performances of the cast, Kim Selling and Joule Zelman of '' The Stranger'' praised that of Swinton, but deemed Johnson miscast in the role of Susie, while Chang noted Swinton's performance as "one of her more restrained".[ Michael O'Sullivan of ''The Washington Post'' alternately considered Swinton's performance a "tour-de-force".][ Klimek praised the performances of all involved,][ while Ehrlich found Johnson's performance "thrillingly unrepentant".][ Truitt noted that Johnson "navigates er rolewith grace, and... captures just the right physicality in the various modern dances that ground the movie with a primordial weight and sexual energy."][ Sandy Schaefer of '']Screen Rant
''Screen Rant'' is an entertainment website that offers news in the fields of television, films, video games, and comic books. It is owned by Valnet, parent of publications including Comic Book Resources, Collider, MovieWeb and XDA Developers.
...
'' described Johnson's performance as "engaging" and Goth as "equally strong".
The film's elaborate dance sequences were largely praised by critics. Gleiberman praised the dances, writing that they have "so much snap and thrust and rhythm you might call it an art-conscious cousin of the pop choreography of Bob Fosse
Robert Louis Fosse (; June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) was an American choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, and stage director. Known for his work on stage and screen, he is arguably the most influential figure in the field of jazz dance in th ...
... the movement is even more jutting and explosive, but it erupts from the women's souls." ''The New York Times'' stated in an article about the film's choreography: "finally, a film that gets dance right", while ''BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
'' reviewer Nicholas Barber says "the company's choreography is woven into the story. It's all deeply impressive." Alonso Duralde of ''TheWrap
''TheWrap'' is an American online news organization that covers the business of entertainment and media. It was founded by journalist Sharon Waxman in 2009 and is based in Los Angeles. The site features original reporting, analysis, and editor ...
'', however, negatively compared them to the dance sequences in '' Showgirls'' (1995) and '' Lost Horizon'' (1973), deeming the sequences "unintentionally hilarious pieces of choreography. The ludicrous terpsichorean display isn't helped by the costuming; the dancers all wear bright-red ropes tied in what appear to be Japanese Shibari bondage knots." Burr alternately praised the choreography, describing it as "propulsive... and ripe with the sight and sounds of exploding body parts."[
Argento panned the film, stating that "it did not excite me, it betrayed the spirit of the original film: there is no fear, there is no music. The film nderwhelmedme", but he did call the film's design "beautiful".
]
Lawsuit
On September 27, 2018, it was reported that the film's American distributor, Amazon Studios, was being sued for copyright infringement by the estate of artist Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter, and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. She is considered one of the most influential Cuban-American ar ...
. The suit, filed in a federal court in Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, Washington, alleged that two images present in the film's teaser trailer were plagiarized from Mendieta's work. The first is an image of a woman's hands bound with rope on a white table, allegedly derived from Mendieta's '' Untitled (Rape Scene)'', and the other is the red silhouette of a body imprinted on a bedsheet, which was claimed to have been derived from her ''Silueta'' series.
A cease-and-desist letter had been delivered to Amazon in July over the images, and they were not included in the subsequent theatrical trailer released the following month. According to the suit, both images had been excised from the film, but an alleged eight others bore notable similarities to other works by Mendieta. On October 24, 2018, two days before the film's U.S. release, it was reported that Amazon Studios and the Mendieta estate had reached an undisclosed settlement.
Accolades
Proposed sequel
''Suspiria'' had the working title of ''Suspiria: Part One'', with Guadagnino and Kajganich conceiving it as the first half of a bigger story. They planned ''Part Two'' to explore the origins of Madame Blanc and Helena Markos and the future of Suzy Bannion. The subtitle was dropped so that ''Suspiria'' would be thought of as a standalone work.
Guadagnino said he would be interested in developing ''Part Two'' if the film were a commercial success. He expressed interest in making a prequel about Markos, set hundreds of years before the first film, saying, "I have this image in my mind of Helena Markos in solitude in the year 1212 in Scotland or in Spain. Wandering through a village and trying to find a way on how she can manipulate the women of the village. I know she was there. I know it was six to seven hundred years before the actual storyline of this film."
In 2020, Guadagnino said a sequel was impossible, as ''Suspiria'' had been "a disaster at the box office".
References
External links
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{{Portal bar, Film, Italy, United States, 2010s, Speculative fiction, Horror, 1970s
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